


The Persistence of Memory

by Eienvine



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Suicide Attempt, T.A.H.I.T.I. protocol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 01:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4857620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eienvine/pseuds/Eienvine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Shaughnessy is a respectable but average person living a respectable but average life . . . except for the dreams. Except for the scars on his body that he can't explain. Except for Daisy, the beautiful girl who comes to his restaurant sometimes and looks at him like she knows him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This story is in response to a prompt from Wolf's Edge, to whom I apologize profusely because I imagine you were expecting something completely different. The prompt was this: "How about one where they put Ward through the T.A.H.I.T.I. protocol and he ends up reconnecting with Skye?"
> 
> This really caught my attention because I have such mixed feelings about the T.A.H.I.T.I. protocol. When Coulson offered it to Ward I was quite annoyed and insulted on Ward's behalf, but when they did it to Cal at the end of season two it felt like just about the best possible ending that character could have gotten. Is it a convenient way to get an adversary off your back, or is it a kindness offered to someone who would otherwise spend the rest of their life in jail? And question two, why in the world are we trusting T.A.H.I.T.I. to work on Cal? Coulson eventually saw through it, and they'd only done a matter of weeks on him. How is a lifetime of memories supposed to hold up for the rest of Cal's life? Has the technology just improved vastly while we weren't paying attention?
> 
> So with these questions in mind, I wrote this. So far it's looking like it'll be three chapters long, unless the last chapter gets so hefty I decide to split it. My current hope is to have it all published before the show starts up next week, but we'll see how that goes.
> 
> THREE IMPORTANT WARNINGS:
> 
> First, this goes in some depth into Ward's past, so there is some frank and direct discussion of abuse. There's also a major plot point that revolves around the scar on Ward's wrist (the one shown in 2x01), so there is some frank and direct discussion of attempted suicide. I don't feel like it's graphic or gratuitous, but you know you, and if you know you shouldn't read this sort of thing, this might not be the story for you.
> 
> Second, this is a darker story than I normally do. I love Ward and Skye and only want good things for them, and I feel like it ends on a reasonably positive note (as much as the current state of the show allows), and it is eventually Skyeward. But if you read my last Skyeward story and would prefer something similarly fluffy and happy, this might not be the story for you.
> 
> Third, I know there are fans who feel, to some extent or another, that Ward shouldn't be held accountable for any of his actions because of his past. I'm not one of those people. Certainly I think his past circumstances warrant consideration and compassion when deciding how much you think Ward is really responsible for, but I also think he did some awful things that he can't entirely blame on Garrett or his family, and both of those ideas are reflected in this story. So if you think that Ward's terrible upbringing (which I am not denying he had) should absolve him of all crimes, this might not be the story for you.
> 
> Anyone still reading after all that? Then let's begin.

. . . . . .

He's standing by the host station, going over the reservation list for the evening, when the front door opens and in walks the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. Big dark eyes, shoulder-length brown hair, perfect skin; something Asian in her ancestry, he'd guess. She's simply dressed, in a dark button-down shirt and jeans—a little more casual than their clientele normally wears, but flattering on her. Her expression is firm, no-nonsense, but that doesn't change the fact that she's breathtaking, that she just happens to be exactly his type. And he is suddenly thrilled to be working tonight.

"Table for one?" he asks pleasantly.

She doesn't answer right away; she's peering at him, as though looking for something. It's almost like . . . it's almost like she recognizes him. But that's impossible; they've never met. He'd remember her.

"Yes, please," she says after a moment.

He's about to tell her they're full just now, that they should be able to get her in in an hour (which fills him with pride—three weeks after opening and, thanks to a combo of good reviews and word of mouth, they're full every night) but then he thinks, what's the point of being partial owner of a restaurant if you can't give a pretty girl a seat? So he leads her to the back, to the tiny table by the kitchen doors. "We actually keep this open for special guests of the owners and chef," he explains. "But no one had plans for it tonight, so we'll make you our special guest for the evening." And he smiles. She seems struck by that smile, somehow. (Does she find him attractive? It's possible. He doesn't have a lot of luck with long-term relationships, but he's never lacked for female interest; he doesn't want to brag, but apparently the broad shoulders and dark hair work for a lot of people. This girl might be his type, but he's everyone's type.)

And this isn't standard operating procedure, but he can't help himself. "What's your name?" he asks as he pulls the chair out for her.

She blinks, surprised. "Daisy," she says.

He smiles back. "James Shaughnessy," he replies, depositing a menu on her table. "Special tonight is linguini with blackened clams. Our chef is a genius with seafood. Actually inspired by a trip I took to the Outer Banks recently."

"Oh," says Daisy, and she's still not smiling but there's something in her face that wasn't there before. "You were in North Carolina?"

"Yeah," James smiles, "I spent a few weeks there before I moved here to open this restaurant."

"How was that?"

"I loved it. If you've never been to the Outer Banks, you should go. It's a magical place."

Daisy looks at him a long moment, and then she picks up her menu. "Thanks for the tips, James."

"Any time," he says, and he wishes he had the guts to ask for her number. "You let me know if there's anything you need, and your server Annie will be right with you."

She nods and he heads back through the restaurant, stopping here and there at tables to ask people how they're enjoying their dinners. Their answers are always enthusiastically complimentary—how could they not be, Luisa is a master when it comes to pasta and pesto—but for once his focus isn't on the success of the restaurant. Right now, it's on a beautiful girl in the back of the restaurant, currently giving the waitress her drink order.

He can't help glancing her way a few times, and he catches her doing the same to him more than once. Is she . . . is she checking him out? He would definitely not mind that. Actually, even if she wasn't romantically interested and just wanted to hang out or something, he would love that. He's not an overly social person, though he can fake it when he needs to, but he does enjoy having people around some of the time—and right now he really doesn't have anyone. He's making friends here in New York City, but very very slowly, and the folks from back home in Chicago are pretty much out of the picture. In fact, with his parents dead and most of his friends scattered to the wind, he's not in contact with one single person from his life before he came here. So a cute girl would be a welcome addition to his life, even if they just became something platonic, like poker buddies.

But he doesn't think she just wants to be poker buddies: he just caught her looking at him again.

He has no reason to go back there, not yet. But maybe, when she's finishing her meal, he can do his job as part-owner and go chat with her a little; ask her how she enjoyed the meal and what did she think of her experience here at Ottavio's? And maybe if he can work up the courage, he'll ask for her number.

In the end, he does none of those things. In the end, James goes into the back to take a call, and when he returns Daisy is gone; Annie tells him she paid for her meal and left.

"Did you happen get her full name off her credit card?

Annie shakes her head. "She paid cash."

It's crazy, the sense of disappointment that settles into the pit of his stomach. He barely spoke two words to her; why should he be disappointed? But he is, and the feeling lingers for the rest of the night.

. . . . . .

He doesn't see Daisy again for a while. And although he still sometimes thinks of her, of what could have happened if he'd gotten a chance to talk to her more, he's got a lot of other things to keep him busy. He may be only a partial owner, but the running of the restaurant falls completely on his shoulders. The rest of the funding came from some rich businessman in upstate New York who was happy to fork over the money and leave everything to James. James has actually only met Noel Roher once—some brown-haired British guy with a close-shaved beard who must have been a soldier before going into the business world because he moves like a fighter—and now their only contact is when James e-mails him weekly with the financial report and the latest reviews of the restaurant.

So Ottavio's keeps him busy in the afternoon and evening, and in the mornings he runs errands and goes to the gym and volunteers at the local Women and Children In Need shelter. And the rest of the time he's just home sleeping . . . and then waking up and wondering if he ought to see a sleep specialist or something. He hasn't slept well at all since he came to New York; just about every other night, he's woken by what he can only assume are terrible dreams. He can't do anything more than assume, because he never remembers them. But given the way his heart is usually pounding when he awakes, it's safe to say they're not pleasant.

So with all he has to do during the day, and with the dreams in the night, he doesn't have too much time to think about Daisy . . . until a month after their first meeting, when she once again walks into the restaurant looking like a million bucks, and he thanks his lucky stars that she liked the food enough the first time to return. She's in a black dress this time—maybe she noticed the general level of dress last time she was here—and she is as stunning as he remembers.

"Daisy," he greets her, walking over to the host stand with a smile on his face.

She is surprised. "You remembered me," she says.

Wincing inwardly, he reminds himself, _Don't be creepy_. This restaurant is still a fledgling effort; the last thing they need is to get a reputation as a place where the staff just hit on the customers all the time. "I try to remember everyone who comes here," he says smoothly. "We like our diners to feel welcome."

She examines his face just a little longer than is normal, then catches herself and nods. "Well," she says, "table for one."

"I'll seat this one, Gaohan," James says, looking over at the man behind the host station. Gaohan nods, too professional to show the smirk that James knows he'd love to give him. "We swapped positions tonight," James explains to Daisy as he leads her once again to the little table in the back. "He sprained his ankle skateboarding in the park, and we thought we wouldn't make him walk around all night. So I'll be your server." And he privately thinks Gaohan is far too old to be hurting himself skateboarding, but just now, he's never been happier to have an injured employee. He gets to be Daisy's server tonight.

She orders a juice—interesting choice, most people use dining out Italian as an excuse to drink a whole lot of wine—and when he returns and starts pouring it, he dares to strike up a conversation. "It's nice to see you back here. I hope that's a sign that your last experience here was a good one."

"Oh, yeah, definitely," she says, and he smiles because she has a forthright manner that he rather likes. Not to mention a nice voice: pleasant-sounding. Throaty. Likable. "That special with the blackened clams was great."

"Well, that'll be the daily special again next Saturday," he offers. "Come back in and I'll tell Luisa to give you extra clams."

Something like a smile lightens Daisy's face for a moment. "That's very nice of you . . . James," she says, and he hopes it's a good sign that she remembered his name (and wonders about the pause before it). "But I won't be around. I actually live out of state. I just come here pretty often on business."

Oh. Well, that is a terrible disappointment. Still, she came here twice; maybe she'll come again. "Well," he smiles, "any time you're in town, you come on by. I'll leave this table open for you." Which is a safe promise to make; he pretty much never has personal guests for this table, and Roher certainly never brings anyone by.

"I'll remember that," she says.

She orders the gnocchi, and when he brings it out and is placing it on her table, his sleeve rides up a little and he sees her staring at his exposed wrist. He looks at her, confused, and then understanding floods his mind. He'd forgotten about the scar there. And while it's probably best not to say anything, he finds himself wanting to explain to her, It's fine, it's just from—

Wait, what is it from?

He knows, of course he knows, how could he not? It's from—

It's on his own arm, he knows how he got it. But . . . he doesn't. There's a curious emptiness in his mind, a black void where the memory of that scar should be. It feels like trying to remember one of his dreams: it's _there_ , just out of reach in his memories, but somehow entirely impossible to get at.

In a startled daze, he turns his wrist so he can look at the scar, really look at it, and has the strangest sensation that this is the first time he's ever done so. It's long and straight with puckered edges, running down his forearm. It looks . . . honestly it looks like he cut his own wrist. But he never did; he's never been suicidal. There's got to be another explanation, but racking his brain is not producing one and is somehow starting to make him slightly nauseated. The scar is from . . . the scar is from . . .

"James?" Daisy says tentatively, and he is ripped back into reality.

How long was he standing there, completely lost in his own head? How embarrassing. How unprofessional. Daisy is never going to come back here, and he hopes that she doesn't have a Yelp account. He can only imagine the review: "Gnocchi was delicious but the owner had a catatonic episode while serving my meal."

"Sorry," he says, as smoothly as possible. "I was just trying to remember something."

And there's that look again, the one Daisy's given him several times already, the one where she peers at his face as though trying to find something there, something that's been lost or forgotten. And then she smiles reassuringly at him, the first full-blown smile she's ever given him, and he is so struck by how it makes her even more beautiful than usual that the episode with the scar nearly leaves his mind. "Not a problem," she says. "This looks great."

He smiles back. "Let me know if you need anything," he says, and goes to fill up water glasses at his other tables. But when his hands are free again, he finds himself unconsciously rubbing that scar on his wrist. Even Gaohan's exaggerated winks and nods in Daisy's direction can't distract him from that strange lingering unease.

"That was delicious, thank you," Daisy says as she's paying after her meal—cash again, so still no last name. "This is a great restaurant you have here. You . . . manage it?"

"Part owner," he says, and can't keep the pride out of his voice. "I studied business in college, and then I—" and he stumbles a little here, not knowing if this stranger really wants to hear about his parents' deaths— "well, I recently came into some money, and I decided to move here and open this restaurant. That's all I ever really wanted to do with my life."

"Well, it's great," she says, and sounds sincere. "And it looks like you guys are doing well." She hesitates. "So you're . . . happy, doing this?"

"Oh, yeah," he says. "I can't imagine anything else I'd want to do with my life."

And for some reason, that makes Daisy look just the tiniest bit relieved. "Good," she says. "I'm glad." She turns to go, pauses, and then turns back to him. "Maybe I'll stop by again," she says. "Next time I'm in town. Keep that table open for me, all right?"

He fights to keep his face professional, rather than triumphant like he currently feels. "All right," he says with a smile. "It's a deal."

She looks at him a moment longer. "Goodbye . . . James." And she's gone.

. . . . . .

He wasn't lying when he told Daisy he was happy doing this. Getting to be surrounded every day by happy people and good food . . . it's perfect. And it's getting better. They've been able to hire more staff, including a couple of excellent new hosts, so he no longer feels like he has to be at the restaurant every moment it's open. He's getting the hang of running the place, too, so he is spending less and less time doing restaurant things outside of normal work hours, which gives him more time to do what he likes. He reads—nonfiction only, he loves nonfiction—and he goes to the gym, which is always the most relaxing part of his day; going there feels . . . right, somehow. He volunteers at the shelter. And he goes for long walks in the nearest park, and he watches the people go by with their dogs and wishes he could get one. He loves dogs; he's always thought dogs are better than people. (Or maybe it's just that he's better with dogs than he is with people.) But the schedule he keeps, and the tiny apartment he lives in—that wouldn't be fair to a dog. He couldn't take care of it like he should.

The only thing to mar his happiness is the mystery of the scar. He tells himself he must have gotten it as a kid; he used to climb a lot of trees, back in the suburbs of Chicago, and he got all the rest of his scars (he has many) that way. So surely that's where this one came from.

He doesn't really believe it, though; it's too straight, too neat, too even, to come from a scratching branch. He's spent more time than he'd like to admit staring at it, prodding it, doing Google image searches for "wrist scar" (which is surprisingly difficult to look at, emotionally; he wouldn't recommend it to others). He even asks someone about it, after a fashion; Gaohan convinces him to come to this sports bar one evening—not really James' thing, but he doesn't have so many friends that he can afford to say no to the ones (the one) he does have—and he somehow finds himself in a conversation with a man at the bar who turns out to be a forensic pathologist. He hesitates for a moment, then figures why not, the man's probably too drunk to remember this later, and he shows the guy the scar.

"What do you make of this?" he says, trying to keep his voice light.

The man's expression tells him all he needs to know.

"I didn't do this to myself, I swear," James says. "I can't remember where it came from. I think I got it scraping up my arm climbing trees when I was a kid."

And the man believes him—James has always been good at convincing people to believe him—and examines the scar more closely with curious eyes. "It's not tree climbing as a kid," he deduces. "This is between one and two years old. Made with—not a knife, but close. Something wider, a little less sharp. It was stitched up afterwards, by someone who knows what they're doing." He looks up at James, his eyes skeptical again. "You don't remember having stitches last year?"

He didn't have stitches in his arm. He's never had stitches, anywhere. And he would have remembered something happening only a year or two ago. He stares at the man, feeling that empty spot in his mind where the memory should be, and suddenly he's nauseated again.

So he tries not to think about the scar. He focuses on Ottavio's, and his volunteer work, and he counts the days until he sees Daisy again—although he doesn't realize he's done so until she walks into his restaurant and he immediately knows it's been forty-six days since the last time she showed up.

It's late in the evening; ten minutes more and he would have started turning newcomers away. But despite the late hour, she walks in and suddenly everything seems brighter. "You've got a choice today," he tells her. "It's late enough that we actually have some of our regular dining tables open."

She hesitates, and then she smiles. "I kind of like the back table."

And he can't help smiling back.

She orders the tortellini, and by virtue of being the last person of the evening to order, is the last person remaining after all the other guests have left. "Don't worry," he assures her when she apologizes, looking around at the nearly empty tables. "You can take all the time you need. I don't mind."

She gives him an odd look then, and he wonders if he's been too obvious with his interest, too forward. She seems to think for a moment, and then asks, "Are you busy? Can you sit for a while?"

Even if he were busy, he'd make time for her. So he pulls up a chair and makes himself comfortable.

"So how are you adjusting to your new life in New York?" she asks.

Now that's an odd question. He did tell her, on their first meeting, that he moved here fairly recently, so he's not surprised she knows that. But it's an odd way to phrase it. It sounds . . . clinical, almost. Like it's off a questionnaire in a psych eval. Surely most people would say "How are you liking New York?"

But he shrugs and tells her the truth. "I'm loving it. Great restaurants, great people, great architecture." He hesitates. "I've been thinking about going home to visit Chicago some time soon, though." It's not that he wants to see Chicago; he has no family and friends there anymore, and despite the fact that it's where he grew up, he has surprisingly little emotional connection to his memories of it. But this scar on his wrist . . . if it's really from one to two years ago, he was living in Chicago when it happened. Maybe going back to his old apartment would jog his memories.

Daisy looks, for the briefest moment, mildly alarmed. Then her face is back to its usual no-nonsense expression. "You don't want to go to Chicago," she says reasonably. "It'd be so cold there this time of year. With all that wind, I bet it's even colder than New York right now."

"You're probably right," he chuckles. Gaohan walks past them then, to go into the kitchen, and when he catches James' eye he nods subtly in Daisy's direction and winks. James prays Daisy didn't see that.

"You know," she says, "my hotel is down by the subway station, and when I was leaving it this morning, I thought I saw you across the street. Walking into a . . . it looked like a shelter. 'Women and Children in Need,' I think it said."

Oh, she saw him? That's . . . good. He doesn't do it to gain anyone else's approval or adulation, and he would never bring it up without prompting, but if it makes this beautiful, charismatic girl like him a little more . . . well, he's not going to object to that. "Yeah, I volunteer down there some. Do a little maintenance work, help out in the kitchen, look after the kids sometimes. Not all of them—some of these kids have learned the hard way not to trust men. It's pretty sad. But yeah, I just help out where I can."

"Wow," says Daisy, and if he had to assign a description to her expression and tone of voice, it would be "reluctant admiration." He wonders where the reluctance is coming from. "What made you decide to do that?"

He shrugs. "Right after I moved here, they were doing a fundraising drive, and I was walking by and I stopped and talked to the woman who runs it. She mentioned they needed help putting up some shelves, and I volunteered, and then I just . . . kept going back." He hesitates, but he wants her to understand why this is important to him. "These kids, these women, they didn't deserve what they got. Supporting them after they've been hurt by the people who were supposed to love them . . . it feels right."

Daisy stares at him a long time, then a smile touches her face. It's tiny, no more than a tugging at the corners of her mouth, but somehow it feels like the most genuine smile she's ever given him. "That's . . . admirable, James."

He can't help giving her a pleased smile; he doesn't get complimented much. And then, uncomfortable with anymore of what feels a bit like bragging about his charitable work, he changes the subject. "So did you hear about that whole thing in Central Park today?"

"Central Park?" she repeats questioningly.

"Yeah, apparently there was some fight there between these government agents and this guy. Everyone who saw it is saying the guy they were fighting could turn his body into water. That's crazy."

"That is definitely crazy," agrees Daisy, taking a sip of her drink.

"I take it you weren't near Central Park?"

"Nope," she shakes her head. "I was in . . . Yonkers."

There's the tiniest hesitation before she says Yonkers. He'd almost think . . . he'd almost think it was a lie. But why would she lie about such a thing? He's imagining it, surely.

"The world is becoming crazier every day," he says. "That's why . . . I know it's not really cool to like them anymore, but that's why I'm really glad we still have the Avengers."

Her eyes light up. "You like the Avengers?" she asks. "Who's your favorite? No, let me guess. Iron Man?"

He shakes his head with a smile. "I like the tech, and I have to admire Tony Stark's intelligence, but actually it's Captain America."

That appears to amuse Daisy so much more than it should. "You're a Cap fan?"

He shrugs, a little embarrassed. Is she laughing at him? "He's so . . . good. He fights for right, he protects those who can't protect themselves, and he's . . . incorruptible. You couldn't convince him to do something wrong if you tried. I wish I were more like him."

Her expression softens. "You spend your mornings helping abused women. I think you might be a pretty decent person yourself, W—James." Her smiles fades, and her expression becomes thoughtful. "Do you ever think about . . . what's the phrase—nature versus nurture?"

He shrugs, shakes his head.

"You know," she goes on, "as in, is the way we are determined by our genes or our upbringing? Like, imagine you have this kid, right? Imagine you . . ." Her gaze slides up to lock on his, and she appears to change her mind about what she's going to say. "Imagine you have Steve Rogers as a baby, and instead of putting him in a home where he learns right from wrong and has people who care for him, you give him to people who don't care about him, who mistreat him, who don't teach him any morals at all. Do you think he'd still grow up to be 'good and incorruptible'?"

James blinks. "I'm not sure," he says, wondering where this is line of thought is coming from. "I'd imagine it's some of each—a lot how we're raised, but certain things are influenced by how we're born. My friend Gaohan who works here, he and his wife have six-month-old twins, and he says already they have very distinct personalities: one's really calm and happy, and the other one's really energetic and high-strung." He shrugs. "But anything beyond those basic personality traits probably has a lot to do with how their parents raise them, I guess."

"Yeah," says Daisy, and she's giving him that searching look again. "I guess it has a lot to do with how you're raised."

. . . . . .

It's another month before she comes back, and once again she shows up right before closing. He'd like to think she did it on purpose, so she could talk to him again. But maybe that's just wishful thinking on his part.

It's felt like a long time that she's been gone. Things are still going well in his new life in New York, but . . . he misses her. He knows it's ridiculous; he's only spoken to her three times. But he misses her all the same. It's strange; being alone never bothered him too much until she came along. He's always been an introvert, and while he does very much like having friends, he also likes his alone time. Being an only child might have something to do with his self-sufficiency, he supposes. And his school friends . . . they were great people, and he still thinks about them sometimes, but he hasn't talked to a single one of them since his trip to the Outer Banks, and honestly, he doesn't miss them at all. He's okay alone. But this Daisy . . . he spends a lot of time thinking about what's best for the restaurant, best for his staff, best for the residents at the shelter. But now that Daisy's around, for the first time in a long time, he wants something for himself.

But what can he do? She doesn't live here. She's only here once a month. And anyway, after that first meeting where she watched him from across the room all night, she hasn't done anything to indicate any interest since beyond just being friendly. No, for now he's going to let her occasional presence in his life be enough. And maybe someday . . . maybe.

She orders the chicken parmesan, and he wishes he could go talk to her while she eats it, but Annie is her server again tonight and he's stuck on hosting duties. Well, not stuck; he loves hosting duties, actually. It's just that right now he wishes he could focus on one particular person, not on the restaurant at large.

But in time most of the other guests have cleared out, and he dares to approach her table as she finishes her chicken.

"James," she smiles, catching sight of him. "Have a seat. Tell me what you've been up to."

And knowing she's happy to see him—well, he can't remember the last time he felt so pleased.

"Same old," he says. "We made some new hires here. Trying a new cheese supplier." He remembers something. "Oh! I got bitten by a parrot the other day."

She looks as flabbergasted and amused as he'd hoped she would. "You got bitten by a parrot?" she repeats.

He nods and launches into the story—all entirely true—and by the end she is laughing aloud. "Wow," she says when it's over. "You're . . . funny." It sounds like that fact surprises her.

He shrugs modestly. "How about you? How's your business trip going? You know, I don't even know what you do."

"Recruiter," she says. "For a big defense company. I bring in personnel with specific skill sets we need. Takes me all over the world."

"That sounds great," he says enviously. "I've never left the US. Have you been to Europe? I've always wanted to go to Europe."

She smiles a little. "Yeah, I have been. All over. It's pretty cool."

"Well, tell me about it," he says.

She looks at him a few moments, and then she acquiesces. Haltingly at first, and then with more eloquence as he encourages her to continue, she talks about her visits to France and Austria and Poland and Bulgaria, about the people she's met and the places she's seen. He gets the sense, from her stories, that she doesn't have a lot of time to go sightseeing while she's over there; she talks about the architecture and the scenery and the food, but never the tourist spots. As far as he can tell she's never seen the Eiffel Tower, despite three visits to Paris. He wonders if she minds. He wonders if she'd like to go.

And he listens and makes encouraging noises and inserts comments and questions where appropriate, and the talk flows like water between them. She's so easy to talk to; he feels like he's known her forever. And as the restaurant empties around them, and Gaohan turns the Open sign off, and the staff starts cleaning up—catching James' eye to make sure it's okay to start closing up while there's still a customer—he knows this is not just a passing fancy. He can see himself falling for this girl.

And Daisy . . . she doesn't seem entirely indifferent. She's having a nice time, at least, and she smiles at him a lot and gives him these looks like it surprises her how much she's enjoying herself, and that's a good sign, right? And he's just getting up the courage to ask if she wants to go out for drinks after this when suddenly her phone beeps. She looks at it and makes a face, then turns to James. "I've got to go—work stuff came up. But . . . this was fun. Thanks for letting me stay late. And tell your chef that the chicken was great."

And she's flitting away, paying with cash again, and he's left standing by the kitchen doors, watching her go with the feeling that he can't stand to wait another month to see her again. But maybe she won't wait that long to come back? Because when he glances down at his watch, he sees that they talked for a full fifty minutes. That's got to be a good sign, too. Right?

"Cute girl," comes a voice behind him, and he jumps about a foot in the air then turns to look ruefully at Luisa. She looks unapologetic. "You should ask her out."

"She lives out of town," he says.

"So?" asks Luisa. "Don't you kids do long-distance relationships all the time, with the texting and the Twitter? You could do that. You need someone in your life, James."

"It's not that easy. We're not all lucky enough to meet the love of our lives when we're twelve years old, Luisa," he reminds her.

She is unmoved. "Ask her out," she commands. "Also, I need a new swing cook. Dale is an idiot."

James chuckles. His brief moment with Daisy is over; back to the real world.

. . . . . .

He thinks about Luisa's words for days to come, mostly because they line up with his own desires. He _does_ want to ask Daisy out. Luisa's right; they could do long-distance, if that date and their future dates worked out. Daisy's in New York often enough, and besides that they have "the texting and the Twitter." Next time she visits the restaurant—if she does continue to visit the restaurant—he's going to ask her out. Or at least find out if she's single. She's got to be single, right? The way she talks to him, it's not flirting, precisely, but it'd be pretty friendly for someone who's already in a relationship.

In the meantime, he focuses on helping to plan the shelter's upcoming food drive and on finding Luisa a new swing cook, and this keeps him pretty busy. He has no new clues in the mystery of the scar, so he tries to put it from his mind. Maybe he did hurt himself and forgot about it. Maybe he got it stitched up so easy and quick that he's completely forgotten it ever happened. That's the only possible explanation. And his dreams—well, he's learning to cope with insufficient sleep. So it's fine. Everything's normal, everything's fine.

Until the day it isn't. Because one morning as he undresses to shower, with his mystery scar still in the back of his mind, he takes a closer look at the some of the scars on his right side. And he jumps a little, and then he stares, and then he grabs his phone to take a picture of them so he can get a better look without climbing on the counter to get close to the bathroom mirror.

They're tree-climbing scars, they have to be. Those are the only types of scars he remembers getting. Except there's two that he's never looked closely at before. Two that look like . . .something else. Little round dents of scar tissue, right along his rib cage.

They look like gunshot wounds.

But if James is sure he's never had stitches on his arm, he's extra sure that he's never, ever been shot. So they can't be what they appear to be.

But what else could they be?

But they can't be.

(But what else could they be?)

For the first time in a long time, he wishes his parents were around, so he could ask them if they have any idea about these scars. But that just makes him feel even stranger, as he suddenly realizes that this is the first time since their deaths that he's missed them, or really even thought about them. He loved them; he knows he did. They were his parents, of course he loved them. He _remembers_ loving them. But as he thinks over a lifetime of memories together, he feels no emotional response, no inward stirring at any recollection. He has to have loved them. But for some reason he doesn't feel that love now.

And a thought crosses his mind: _something is wrong with me_.

Similar thoughts come whirling faster and faster through his brain. He has scars he can't explain. Every memory in his past that should be laden with emotion instead feels like it's a story he heard about a stranger. And there's no one he can talk to because there's literally no one in his life right now that he's known for longer than eight months. He finds himself sitting on the edge of his bed and breathing so heavily that he worries he's going to hyperventilate.

_Calm down, there's nothing wrong with you. What possibly could be wrong? Everything that's happened has a logical explanation. It must._

Slowly his breathing calms, and he sits there until his thoughts are under control again. Then, foregoing the shower, he puts his shirt back on and goes outside. He needs some interaction with other people right now.

The walk works; by the time he gets back to his apartment, his head is clear and he's sure those strange scars are from climbing trees, just as he'd thought. And his parents—maybe he's shutting down how he really feels so as not to be overwhelmed by the grief. That's possible. That's probable. And everything is fine.

But his unease must linger on his face because that night, when Gaohan comes in for his shift, he takes one look at James and grimaces. "What happened to you, man? Are you okay?"

James flinches. "Fine," he lies.

Gaohan looks suspicious, but just then Annie yells for him to come give her a hand. So all he does is point at James. "I'm not dropping this," he says. "I'm talking to you later."

But that turns out to be difficult; it's one of their busiest nights ever, and no one has a spare moment until the night is nearly over. It's long past dark when Gaohan returns to the host station, seats himself defiantly in one of the waiting area chairs, and raises an eyebrow at James. "Now," he says firmly, "talk."

"There's nothing wrong with me."

"Of course there is," scoffs Gaohan. "You look so tense that I can't believe you haven't snapped already. Now talk."

"It's nothing!"

"It's something!"

"It's—I'm going crazy, okay?" James finally all but yells. He didn't intend to acquiesce, but he's still so shaken from earlier today that all his defenses are down. And now that he's thinking about it, it occurs to him that if there was anyone in his life he could tell about this, it would be Gaohan. The guy believes in alien abductions and government mind control; maybe this stuff will be right up his alley. At the very least he doesn't think his friend will think less of him for what he's about to say.

"How do you mean?"

James considers a while, then all his words come out in a rush. "I have scars on my body I can't recall getting. And I mean . . . major scars. As in, gunshot scars." A large group of diners leave just then, and James and Gaohan both put on their best professional smiles to bid them all farewell, and then they drop back into their conversation. "And my memories of my past feel . . . weird. They feel like they're not mine. I realized today, I don't even miss my parents. They only died a year ago, and when I think of them, I might as well be looking at photographs of strangers. Am I having some kind of mental breakdown?"

Gaohan, predictably, looks intrigued. But before he can respond, a voice comes from behind them. "What's a girl got to do to get a table around here?" Daisy, of course, tonight of all nights.

James jumps about a mile. He didn't hear the door; she must have slipped in while that other group was leaving. Of course he's got to make an idiot of himself in front of her by being the worst host ever, and of course she'd choose to come on a night when he's sort of a mess.

"Daisy! Right this way," he says, grabbing a menu and hoping she didn't overhear any of what he just said. He's not brilliant with women, but he knows enough to be pretty sure that saying "Am I having some kind of mental breakdown?" is not sexy.

She eats her spaghetti and meatballs calmly, but when he goes to the back to ask Luisa a question, she reaches out and grabs his wrist as he passes. "Do you have a sec?" she asks quietly.

He hesitates, and he looks around the room at the handful of diners remaining, and he figures that Gaohan can handle everything for a while. "Sure," he says, pulling up a chair.

She takes a deep breath. "I couldn't help overhearing what you were saying to your friend," she says. "You're . . . having some problems?"

"What? No," he lies. "I'm fine. Everything's fine."

She looks at him a long moment, and then she reaches across the table and covers his hand with hers. The feeling is extremely nice and somehow almost familiar. "I know we don't know each other well, but . . . it matters to me that you're all right."

His heart sings. And how can he brush her off now? So he comes up with the most mundane possible explanation for what she heard. "My parents died last year," he says. "Car crash; both died instantly. And I'm wondering if I just never processed it, somehow. If I just sort of shut off all my feelings about it so I didn't have to cope with the grief. Because somehow I don't feel as strongly about it now as it seems like I should."

Daisy hesitates. "You said that when you think of them, you might as well be looking at pictures of strangers," she says. "Does that happen with any of your other memories of your past?"

Yes, all the time. "It's really no big deal," he says, trying to force himself not to look down at her hand on his. "I'm just, I don't know, in denial or something. Maybe I'll see a therapist."

Daisy is quiet for what feels like a long time. And then she grasps his hand that she's already touching and turns it over so his scarred wrist is exposed, facing upwards. "One of the first times I ate here, you stood and stared at this scar for a full thirty seconds, like you'd never seen it. Has that ever happened to you any other time?"

There's no way he can answer this without losing any chance he has with her. So he starts trying to come up with a lie, and she notices. He doesn't know how, but he can see from the change in her expression that she sees through his silence and is concerned.

She opens her mouth to speak, and then suddenly her hand goes up to her ear (he immediately misses the feeling of her skin against his). There's a strange look on her face, like she's listening to something only she can hear. And then her expression hardens. "I've got to go take care of something," she says. "But I'll be back. I want to finish this conversation." She hesitates, then reaches out and squeezes his hand. "You're not crazy, James." And she grabs her purse and all but runs out of the restaurant.

James is left staring in shock, and it's only when the door has shut very firmly behind her that he glances down and notices that her phone has fallen out of her purse onto the floor. Maybe she needs it, wherever she's going. He can probably still catch her, if he runs. So he scoops up the phone and jogs out after her.

She's standing a few doors down, at the mouth of an alleyway; her back is to him and her hand is still up to her ear, and as he quietly approaches he can hear her talking to no one. But he can only make out one bit: _Skye_. "Skye out," maybe, is what she said? And then she turns and jogs down the alley.

And James stands, dumbstruck, for a long moment. Skye, she'd said, and a tinge of something like recognition had swept through him. But there's more than that. Because when she said Skye, he'd known instinctively that she meant it as a name, not as the big blue thing overhead. And he'd seen it spelled in his head—he reads a lot, and sometimes he pictures words when he hears them. So he pictured this word, and he'd known it was spelled with an 'e' at the end. There's no way he could have known that. Spoken aloud, "sky" would sound the same as "Sky" would sound the same as "Skye." But somehow he'd known exactly which one she'd meant.

Shaking his head, he dodges down the alley after her, thankful there's enough light here to make his way safely. Is she crazy, coming down this way in the dark? This is a safe neighborhood. But that doesn't mean wandering down back alleys in the dark is always safe. Ahead, he hears voices, and he creeps closer until he can understand the words.

"I told you I'd find you," a man is saying. "And I told you I'd bring friends."

"I'm trying to help you." Daisy! What in the world is she thinking, choosing a place like this to confront a man who's threatening her? "I'm offering to teach you how to keep it under control. Even use it for good."

"Hmm . . . nope, I'm happy as I am," says the man. "In fact I wanted to show you just what I'm capable of. To send a message to your friends to leave me alone."

And James has heard enough. There's a length of pipe on the ground, and he scoops it up and dodges around a dumpster so he can see Daisy standing and facing a man who's . . . glowing? Yes, he's not imagining it, the man's whole body is giving off an orange glow bright enough to read by. Now running purely on bravado, James steps forward. "Leave her alone," he says, brandishing the pipe. What he'd do with it if pressed, he has no idea. He's never gotten in a fight in his life.

"You brought a friend too," says the glowing man, as Daisy turns around quickly to look at James.

In the dim light he can just make out her face: concerned and slightly exasperated. And then it changes to one of shock. "Ward, behind you!" she yells.

Who or what is Ward? is all he has time to think when suddenly there is a blow on the back of his head. He stumbles and drops the pipe and just barely manages to keep his feet, and though his vision has gone a bit fuzzy, he manages to catch sight of three men who've snuck up behind him. He has no idea what to do—they're blocking the way back out of the alley and anyway he's certainly not going to run off and leave Daisy there—and he winces as he imagines the beating he is about to get. One man steps forward and pulls his arm back, and all James can do is brace himself.

And suddenly it's like someone else has control of his body. As the punch comes, James neatly sidesteps it, grabs the assailant's arm, and uses his momentum to toss him onto the asphalt. And as the man groans on the ground, all James can do is stare. Did _he_ do that?

The other two men approach cautiously, and once again James tenses up, wary and defenseless. But once again, as soon as they attack, it's like someone else grabs the controls of his body—an instinctive and shockingly skilled self-defense. A dodge here, a punch here, a feint here, a toss and a kick. It's . . . elegant. It's exactly as much violence as is needed and no more. And it's effective. If he were watching someone else do it, he'd be impressed. But since he's watching himself do it, he's horrified.

 _I was right,_ he thinks as the two men fall to the ground. _There is something wrong with me._

But there's no time to think about it. He hit those men pretty hard, but somehow they're getting up. "Inhumans?" Daisy says behind him—probably to the glowing man, as the word means nothing to James. "You had to make this hard, didn't you?" And then, as James backs away from his assailants: "James, take this!" she shouts, and when he turns to her, she tosses him a gun from her purse.

He catches it, but reluctantly. "I can't shoot someone!" he objects.

"It's a tranquilizer gun," she calls back. "You won't kill them." And she returns her attention to the glowing man, and James realizes he's on his own against three men who are impossibly difficult to knock unconscious. Right now a tranquilizer gun actually sounds like a brilliant idea.

He turns it in his hand so he can hold it like he's seen in movies. But this gun isn't like the ones he's seen in movies. It's sleeker, more high-tech, and part of it is glowing blue—must be the tranquilizer part of it, he decides, and puts his finger on the trigger. The gun feels familiar in his hand, the shape and the weight of it, which makes no sense—he's never shot a gun in his life. But somehow he knows exactly which little piece to pull back, exactly how to raise it and aim it, and before he's realized what he's doing he drops the three men charging toward him with three perfectly placed shots.

From somewhere behind him, the glowing man growls. "Your boyfriend is getting in my way," he says, and James looks back at him just in time to see the man fling his arm. Something like lightning shoots from it and races toward James, too fast to dodge.

"Ward!" Daisy yells again.

The blast hits him, knocks him backward and into a dumpster, and this time he really is going to lose consciousness, he can feel it. The last thing he's aware of is a low rumbling, like thunder. And is the ground shaking? Or is just that the head injury making him hallucinate?

"Skye," he tries to call, but he's not sure if it's a whisper or a shout.

The next moment, his head falls back and everything vanishes into the peace of unconsciousness.

. . . . . .


	2. Chapter 2

. . . . . .

James wakes with the vague sense that he has been out for at least a few hours. His head hurts, but he has a feeling it was hurting worse earlier, when . . . why was his head hurting so badly earlier?

Suddenly memory returns to him like a flash of lightning and his eyes fly open. "Dasiy!" he says aloud, the words slipping from his mouth without his meaning to speak. She's alone with that . . . that man, the one who glows and shoots lightning and had threatened her life. Is she all right? He tries to sit up and dizziness overtakes him, forcing him to lie back down.

As he lays there, waiting for the spinning to stop, he takes a moment to take in his surroundings. He's not in the alley anymore. In fact he's in what appears to be a hospital room, dark and windowless, lit only by the readouts on the machinery around him. He's entirely alone, and aside from a periodic beep from one of the machines and a low electronic hum, all is silent. The digital clock on his bedside table tells him it's 1:35 in the morning—he assumes he's only been out for a few hours, but honestly it could have been a whole day for all he knows. There's a bandage on his head; clearly one or both of those hits he took drew blood. His neck is quite sore, spreading into his shoulders and chest, but he's not wearing one of those brace things so apparently he didn't damage his neck too much. And he's wearing a hospital gown and there are electrodes on his skin. That is everything he's capable of ascertaining right now.

When his head has stopped spinning he tries sitting up again, slowly this time. This time he manages to make it upright with no negative consequences and only an increased heart rate to show for it. He wonders if someone's monitoring that heart rate machine and they're going to come running in, but a minute passes and no one does. Apparently he's in here on his own.

For several minutes he sits there, trying to decide what to do next; he can see no nurse call button (that's a thing, right? Nurse call buttons? He doesn't know, he's never been in a hospital before—as far as he's aware. Although his scars would indicate he's been shot and tried to commit suicide in the past so maybe he has been hospitalized and just forgot). But he needs to know what's going on—where is he? Where's Daisy? He feels all right; he thinks he could walk. So, after he's sat long enough to get thoroughly tired and frustrated and confused, he pulls off the electrodes, wraps himself in a robe that's hanging by the door, and eases himself out of his hospital room.

He's in a short hallway, stark and institutional-looking; there are no windows anywhere, and he wonders if he's underground. There are also no people anywhere, just a handful of doors identical to his and a cart with fresh linens and a water jug down the way a little. Unusual hospital, if it is a hospital. Maybe it's not. Maybe the glowing man captured them and this is his . . . lair. A guy who shoots lightning probably has a lair, right? (He thinks all this, jokingly, but he doesn't really believe it. He's James Shaughnessy, a restaurateur who runs a respectable but unglamorous Italian bistro in a respectable but unglamorous neighborhood on the upper tip of the Upper West Side. People like him don't get captured by glowing lightning men.)

He's in the process of deciding which direction to choose when he hears a sound, like a muffled shout from nearby. That makes his decision for him, and he moves quietly toward the sound. It turns out to be coming from a lab of some kind; the wall between it and the hall he's currently in is floor-to-ceiling windows, meaning that if he gets close, he'll be seen. So he hangs back a little. He's not hiding, precisely, but he wants to be sure of what he's getting himself into before he lets them know he's awake. Just in case he was in fact captured by the lightning man.

"I'm telling you what I've been telling you all along." Daisy! She's all right. But she sounds angry, so now he doesn't want to interrupt. "It didn't work. And if it didn't work on Ward, maybe it's about to fail on Cal."

Ward. She used that word—that name?—several times in that alleyway. Used it to refer to James, actually, come to think of it.

The next voice that speaks up is female, young, and British. "Scans show his brain activity is normal. We have no evidence that the Tahiti protocol failed."

"I have the evidence," says Skye, sounding exasperated. "I've seen the evidence in talking to him. There are gaps in the background we created. He's finding them all the time."

A man speaks then, a man with a mild, pleasant voice. He sounds tired, though. "We put in as much detail as we thought he could hold," he says.

"I know," says Daisy, and she sounds quieter, more placating. "Maybe human memory is still too complex for us to try to mimic—especially an entire lifetime's worth. And then there are concrete things we can't change. Like his scars."

One of James' hands goes up to unconsciously touch the scar on his wrist. Are they talking about him? If so, why are they calling him Ward? And what is the Tahiti protocol? There's that nausea again, like he gets when he thinks too hard about memories he can't find. And the pain in his head increases sharply.

The British woman speaks. "We tried, the first time. We provided a blanket explanation for the scars—but clearly some of them required more detailed explanations. So we try again and we fix that mistake."

"It's not just that," said Daisy. "This will all be in my field report, once I have time to write it up. What I'm seeing is, we can manufacture memories, but we can't manufacture the emotions that attach to them. He noticed that he didn't love his parents. We can't _make_ him love his parents. A person is always going to notice that kind of disconnect."

It's him. They're talking about him, for sure—he told Daisy his feelings about his parents, and now she's telling whoever these people are about it, and they claim they _manufactured_ his memories. How is that possible? Why would anyone even do that? And she was going to write about it in a field report—has she been observing him? Spying on him? Was her walking into Ottavio's that first night not mere chance but part of an assignment she was on? The pain in his head has been increasingly slowly and inexorably and it's blinding now, and he reaches out for the wall to hold himself up and ends up backing into a cart behind him and knocking water glasses to the floor. A moment later, the door to the lab opens.

It's Daisy. "Wa—James!" she says, looking worried. "You shouldn't be up. Your head injury—"

"He's awake?" comes the voice of the British woman, and a face appears behind Skye: young, pale, brunette, very pretty. "I thought you'd be out for ages," she mutters. "You always were resilient."

"You should get back to bed," says Daisy, stepping forward.

But James backs up a step. "Were you talking about me in there?" he demands, and Daisy and her companion both grimace.

"You heard that?" Daisy says resignedly.

"Daisy, what is going on here? Where am I, and what did you mean about manufacturing memories?"

She steps forward again, and he steps back again and hits the wall. "Don't," he orders her harshly, and thinks that this must be a dream. Maybe this is one of those awful dreams he's always having and forgetting. And in fact, he prays this is one of those awful dreams he's always having and forgetting. Because to find out the only girl who's ever meant anything to him is a liar and a . . . _whatever_ this all is, would be unbearable.

The pain in his head is so sharp now that he's swaying on his feet; he fights the urge to lay down right here on the floor. And Daisy seems to notice his discomfort. "James? Is it your head?"

Unable to do anything else, he nods, slowly.

She and the British woman exchange glances. "Look," Daisy says, "I know you're confused and upset right now. But you need more time to recuperate. Can we please take you back to your room and give you something for your head?"

He wants to say no, he really does. But right now he thinks he's in very real danger of his head just exploding from the pain. So he nods again.

The British woman leads the way back to his hospital room and Daisy walks there by his side; at first she keeps a respectful distance from him but by the time they reach his room she's got one hand on his arm and the other on his back in an attempt to keep him upright. In his room, he takes off the robe and gets back in bed, willing at this point to do just about anything to make his head stop hurting. His two companions converse together quietly a moment, and then Skye approaches the bed and sits in a chair next to it.

"Hey, James," she says quietly, while he watches her skeptically. "I know you're mad at me right now. And that's fine. I don't blame you. But you need to rest, and Dr. Simmons here thinks you need something to stop the pain and help you sleep. But we're not going to inject you with anything without your permission. Is it okay for her to give you this shot?"

He stares at her, saying nothing. Laying down has helped the pain in his head, but only a very little. She's right; he'll never fall asleep like this. "Where am I?" he demands.

"You're in a military base, ish," she says, and he supposes it could be true; that mostly matches what he's seen.

"Why did you bring me here?"

"Reynolds and his goons did a number on you," she says. "Knocked you around a lot. We needed to make sure you're okay. And . . ." She hesitates, but something about her body language gives him the feeling that she's still telling the truth. "We wanted to try and sort out what's going on in your head."

So there _is_ something going on in his head. Maybe it really is her fault. Or maybe he's just losing touch with reality. "You had something to do with . . . all this?" He gestures at his head.

"I promise we'll give you answers when you've had time to heal," she says. "But right now you really need to sleep." She hesitates, and then she reaches out and takes his hand in hers. And just like last time, he is struck by how familiar it feels. "Please trust me, James."

He looks up at her face, that face he used to think about every single work day, longing to see her walk through his door. He wants to trust her; he wants to believe she has his best interests at heart. And anyway, what choice does he have? He can barely walk right now. He can barely think. So he nods. "Fine, give me the shot."

Daisy squeezes his hand, and Dr. Simmons approaches the bed and deftly injects something into his arm. The pain begins to fade almost immediately, and with it his consciousness. It is blessed relief after that pain, and James decides that even if it kills him, it might be worth it. He can sleep now, definitely, and actually this bed is feeling incredibly comfortable.

Daisy's grip loosens and she moves as though to stand, but he tightens his grip on her hand. "Stay, please," he speaks without thinking, already too far gone in that lovely drug-induced haze to care that he's being forward and that she's been lying to him all along.

She hesitates, then settles back into her chair. Her other hand comes up so she can run her thumb across his knuckles. And it's nice; he can't remember the last time he felt looked after like this. Even if she's part of whatever this all is, it's nice to fall asleep with someone's hand in his.

And finally, his eyes drift closed.

. . . . . .

The next time he wakes up, his head feels much better, which he supposes is from having had time to heal—from the scruff on his face, he's been in this military hospital for three or four days. According to the clock, it's 5:40 in the afternoon. This time, he's only awake for a few moments before someone enters the room: that British woman, Dr. Simmons.

"Good morning," she says, sounding professional, as though this is a totally normal doctor visit and that episode from a few days ago never happened. "How are you feeling? How's your head?" There's something strange about her manner, though; he gets the sense that she doesn't like being in here with him, but is staying out of duty.

"Better," he says warily, watching her bustle over and look at readouts on several different machines. "Nice of you not to leave me in the dark like last time I woke up." Rude? Probably. But he feels like he's probably got the right to be rude right now, after being snatched from home and hospitalized in this place. (He doesn't dwell on the other thing they might have done to him: that they might have manufactured his memories. Because the last time he was awake, he'd been disoriented and frightened and he'd believed such a thing was possible. But now, well-rested and clear-headed, he knows the whole notion is nonsense, just science fiction, and that conversation he overheard feels more like a fevered dream than reality. He misunderstood what they were saying, he's sure of it. Or maybe he dreamed it all up.)

Dr. Simmons looks appropriately chagrined. "I do apologize," she says. "I wasn't monitoring you as closely as I should have—I was quite certain you'd be unconscious for a long time yet, and I'd been called into a . . . fairly important meeting. It won't happen again, I promise you. I pride myself on my professionalism."

And she seems so apologetic that he almost feels bad for bringing it up. "All right," he says. "Any chance you're going to tell me what's going on?"

Her smile is tight, without warmth. "Above my pay grade, I'm afraid. Telling you is, I mean. We're leaving that for the director."

"Director of what? I thought this was a military hospital."

"It is. He's the director of our . . . group."

Before he can ask what that means, she's leaning over him and shining a light in his eyes, which is quite distracting and effectively derails his line of questioning. So he's quiet a long moment, until he thinks of another question. "How long have I been here? And how long will I be here? I have a life to get back to. I have a job and . . . friends." He does have friends, really. Well, he has Gaohan, anyway. And Luisa likes him quite well, although she's nearly sixty and they definitely don't hang out in their off-hours.

"That's all been taken care of."

"Taken care of? How?" he demands. "Who's running the restaurant? _Is_ it still running?"

"We've contacted your people. It will run just fine for a few days with you gone—your chef and your staff are taking care of it. And any major decisions can be made by your partner, Mr. Roher."

Mr. Roher? How do they know about him? Do they know every piece of his life? Before he can get too worked up about it, though, there's a knock on the door. Is it Daisy? In spite of everything, he hopes it's Daisy, and he's mad at himself for that hope but he can't help it. Half of him is angry with her and half of him can't help but forgive her, trust her, wish he could hold her hand again.

It's not Daisy. It's a middle-aged white male, brown-haired and average-looking, dressed in a suit. "Can I have a few minutes with the patient?" he asks Dr. Simmons, and she nods and leaves the room. "Glad to see you're awake," he tells James, and his voice is familiar. This is, he's fairly sure, the man that Daisy was talking to in that lab.

"James, right?" says the man. "Phil Coulson. I'm the director here."

James shakes the offered hand cautiously—he is not usually a suspicious or mistrustful person, but the last few days may have changed that for good. "Here as in this hospital?"

"This hospital is part of the organization I run. We are a . . . defense organization, you could say."

Isn't that kind of what Daisy said she did? "Are you Daisy's boss?"

Coulson looks surprised at the question, but he nods.

"Did you send her to spy on me?"

Coulson gives him an apologetic look, and James can feel himself scowling. He thought they were friends, but he was always just an assignment to her.

"Why?"

"I can't tell you that yet."

Of course he can't. "Why am I here?" James presses.

He's expecting more runaround, so he's pleasantly surprised with the amount of information in Coulson's answer. "You witnessed and were involved in an altercation between one of my agents and what we refer to as 'powered' or 'gifted' individuals. You were badly hurt in the fight and my agent was worried about you. We took you in on her insistence, and because we want to help you with your current . . . condition."

Condition? James wants to ask what exactly he means, but Coulson interrupts. "Does that seem all right to you? We'll need some cooperation from you for the next couple days." James considers for a moment, but if they can provide answers about his scars and his memories, he's willing to give them a chance. He sort of trusts Daisy, although he probably shouldn't, and this is her boss. So he shrugs and nods his acceptance, and Coulson launches into a list of questions. "Now, you, James Shaughnessy, run an Italian restaurant in New York City. Correct?"

James nods, and Coulson heads off into questions about the restaurant, the staff, how long he's been there, what does he think about New York City. And James tries to stay angry and suspicious, but it's hard—this Coulson guy has a very disarming way about him, and by five minutes into the conversation, James finds himself liking and even trusting the man, quite against his will.

And then the questions shift to his life before New York. Coulson asks him a lot of questions about his trip to North Carolina—why in the world does that matter?—and then about growing up and going to college in Chicago.

"Do you ever miss Chicago?" Coulson asks, and James hesitates, then shrugs.

"No, not really. I had some great times there, but it . . . I don't know, going back doesn't sound appealing right now."

Coulson's expression is grave, and James wishes he knew what was going on behind that face. The man's mild manner is the perfect mask: absolutely inscrutable.

Finally the questions begin to slow down. "Do you ever have bad dreams?"

Surprised, James nods.

"About what?"

"I never remember," says James. "But they wake me up, and I can tell they've been . . . upsetting."

Coulson nods. "One last question," he says, and gestures with his pencil to James' right wrist. "Can you tell me where you got that scar?"

James' jaw tightens. "I can't."

"You can't tell me or you can't remember?"

"I can't remember," James says, and the nausea that he has come to associate with thinking about this scar comes back in full force.

"Try," says Coulson calmly. "Think back. It doesn't look that old. Think back to last year and try to remember."

And James does. He tries, he really does. It's just— thinking about that void in his memory is the blankest his mind ever gets, and it's frightening. Coming across it in his memories is like stumbling in the dark over a chair when you know you didn't put a chair there before you went to sleep. He hates this feeling he hates it he hates it—

"James?"

James looks up at the director with an embarrassed grimace, remembering what Daisy said about the last time that happened to him. "How long was I gone?" he asks meekly.

Coulson's face is absolutely grim. "Almost a minute," he says, and he suddenly looks very old and very weary. With a sigh, he stands from his chair. "I need to do some thinking about your condition," he says. "I'll let you know as soon as I have any answers."

"Sir?" James doesn't know why he's calling this man sir, but it feels right. "When do I get to go home?"

Coulson gives him an apologetic look. "I'm not sure."

That annoys James. "What if I just got up and walked out of here?" he asks.

"You'd have trouble," Coulson tells him. "This is a very secure facility."

And that pricks at James' stubborn streak. "Am I a prisoner?" he demands.

Another sigh. "No. But this situation is more dangerous and more complicated than you realize. We don't want to lock you up. But I will take any steps I have to in order to protect my people. And protect you, even if that means protecting you from yourself." Then a tiny smile lightens his face. "It won't be much longer now, I promise."

He leaves the room, and James drops his head back on his pillow and wonders how his life got so surreal.

. . . . . .

Dr. Simmons comes in a little while later with a companion, a young man about her age wearing a cardigan and a button-up shirt. He has curly hair of a nondescript color and pale skin, and his face goes even paler when he sees James. James gets the feeling that this man, like Dr. Simmons, has what seems like an entirely unfounded dislike of him. Where is all this hate coming from?

"James, this is Dr. Fitz," says Dr. Simmons. "He's going to help me out while we give you an MRI." She hands James the robe, and he puts it on and gets in the provided wheelchair, deciding not to point out that he can walk just fine on his own because it doesn't seem like anyone here listens to him anyway. Dr. Fitz pushes the wheelchair down the hall to a room with a big machine that James recognizes from TV shows. For half an hour he lays in the machine while it whirs and hums around his head and Dr. Simmons occasionally asks him questions or instructs him to perform a small task. Dr. Fitz speaks up once or twice—usually responding to something Dr. Simmons said—and it surprises James to learn the man has a Scottish accent. He's met four people here so far, and two of them have been British. Are they even still in America? He was out for a while, so who knows?

Afterwards they return him to his room and bid him a cautious goodbye, and to James' surprise he falls into bed and quickly starts to doze off. After how long he slept, he'd have thought he'd be awake for days, but this whole ordeal has drained him, apparently. In a matter of minutes, he is asleep.

The next time he wakes up, it's morning and Daisy is sitting by his bed. "You're up," she says with a small smile. And in the moment before he remembers that she's been lying to him all along, he thinks how nice it is to wake up to the smile of the woman you—but no, he remembers now: she's not what she pretended to be and it's probably best not to think like that anymore. It's probably best to get right down to business.

"Are you here to give me answers?"

Her mouth tightens into a hard line and she nods wordlessly. There's a long silence while she appears to search for words, and suddenly she bursts out, "First, can we talk? About—anything? I don't even care about what, let's just talk."

"Why?" he asks, baffled, as he sits up in his hospital bed.

She looks down and plays with the cuffs of her black shirt. "Because everything's going to be different after we have this conversation. Me and you aren't going to be . . . on good terms with each other anymore. And I'm not ready to let go of this just yet. Just five minutes, that's all."

Curiosity about this dire message she plans to deliver is killing him a little, but he also can't deny that his heart is lifting at her words. They don't have a chance; he knows that. He still has no idea what she does, but according to Coulson she's an agent for some kind of defense organization, and her job includes getting into "altercations with powered individuals." James isn't entirely sure what that means, but he is fairly sure it means that he and she don't have a chance, even without the lies between them.

But that doesn't mean that part of him doesn't wish that they did—have a chance, that is. And he is moved and gratified by this evidence that she might be sorry about that fact, just like he is—that this _something_ between them is not purely in his imagination.

"It doesn't have to be that way," he says. "We're smart. We're adults. We can figure out a way to stay . . . friendly with each other."

She gives him a sad smile and one hand tentatively reaches out to rest on his forearm. "I don't think so," she says quietly. "Because when we're done here you're going to hate me. You're probably going to hate yourself too."

James feels a chill run down his spine at the finality and bleakness in that statement. He can't imagine what they're going to talk about that would make him hate her and himself, but Daisy clearly absolutely believes that it's true. So he nods. "Okay, let's talk about something else," he says. "What do you want to talk about?" Surely the answers he seeks can wait five minutes.

She smiles and removes her hand from his arm, and he immediately wants it back. "I don't know. Tell me . . . about the shelter you volunteer at."

So James acquiesces. He tells her how he started by helping out putting up some shelves—"Because I'm tall and can lift things, not because I'm any good at handy work"—and then stayed when he learned that they needed help in the kitchen in the mornings. He talks about the job placement program and how he uses his connections with other restaurateurs to find waitressing and kitchen positions for some of the residents. He talks about helping some of the kids with their schoolwork and organizing games and activities for them. He talks about Ricky, who looks so much like a kid version of James that they all call him "James' little twin" and how sometimes looking at him makes James think how lucky he is, how different his life could have been if he'd be born to an abuser like Ricky's dad.

Daisy listens and laughs and asks questions in the appropriate places and contributes some of her own stories of growing up in foster care. At some point, around the time he's talking about Ricky, her hand creeps into his again and he carefully doesn't react, doesn't do anything to call attention to it and maybe frighten her off. Because apparently whatever they're going to talk about next will ruin this, and if this is the last time he gets to touch her, he's going to cherish it. Because despite everything, she's still the most perfect girl he's ever met.

He really is a sucker when it comes to her.

The time flies by and when he next looks at the clock by his bedside, he sees that they've been talking for forty minutes—quite a lot past the five she originally asked for. Part of him wishes they could just keep talking, but he can feel something in the conversation shifting and he knows they've reached the point where they've got to talk about _it_ , whatever _it_ is. So he sighs and looks up at Daisy, and she sighs and nods.

"You know," she says after a moment, "you don't have to do this. You've been happy in New York, haven't you? You told me that. We could send you back right now and you could just keep running your restaurant."

He considers this. "Would you still come check up on me, or whatever you've been doing?"

A half-smile brightens her face. "Yeah, I could do that."

And it's tempting. It's quite tempting. But he doesn't know if he'd stay happy, with this mystery on his mind. If his reaction to the scar is any indication of what would happen, he'd eventually drive himself mad thinking about it. "If you knew there was some mystery about your past, could you just let it go?"

Her smiles turns rueful. "No, I couldn't. That's actually the reason I became a shield agent, to solve the mystery of my past."

Shield agent . . wait, is this SHIELD? Well, why didn't Coulson say so? James would have been way more trusting if he'd known—public opinion might have turned against them after the whole Hydra thing, but James still believes in them. Although he supposes he knows why Coulson wouldn't bring it up—they're not exactly popular and mentioning the organization might have made certain people less likely to cooperate. But this is the Avengers' SHIELD. This is Captain America's SHIELD.

James turns his mind back to the matter at hand. Daisy's veiled warnings that he'll be unhappy if he learns the truth are giving him pause, but now that he knows there's some life-changing secret he doesn't know about his own self, but that SHIELD is interested in, he doesn't think he could rest easy until he understands. And he doesn't know if could live happily now that he knows he's living a lie. So he hesitates, and then he squeezes her hand (why not, might be his last chance). "I'd rather know."

She nods and squeezes his hand back, just for a second, and then releases it. "I left some clothes for you in the bathroom; we're going to go for a little walk and I figured you'd be more comfortable if you were dressed. We're in no hurry; take a shower if you'd like."

In the bathroom, Ward finds sweat pants and a t-shirt, just his size, both with a small eagle logo on them. This is SHIELD, all right. He takes a three-minute shower—it's been days, he definitely needs it—and then dresses quickly. His unshaven face he can do nothing about; they haven't left him a razor or anything. But there's a comb, and he uses it to wrangle his hair into some semblance of order. Then he steps into the slippers by the door and comes back out to find Daisy waiting for him. "Let's go," she says, nodding at the door.

He follows her out the hall and down in the direction they went last time. And as they pass that lab with all the windows, he stops and stares at the most unexpected sight he could imagine: a tall, beautiful blonde woman is looking at something under a microscope, and next to her is Noel Roher, his partner in the restaurant.

He can't help himself; he turns around and walks back to the door of the lab. "Mr. Roher?" he asks, dumbfounded. "What in the world are you doing at SHIELD?"

Mr. Roher and the blonde woman look over at him and both visibly tense. In their eyes, he sees the same dislike he sees in the faces Drs. Fitz and Simmons, plus in the woman he sees something else, something he can't name. But she's clearly upset at the sight of him.

Daisy comes up behind him. "Oh, you weren't supposed to see them." She looks apologetic.

"Sorry, Skye," shrugs the man.

She sighs and turns to James. "Well, as you might guess, your Mr. Roher is one of ours. And he's actually not Mr. Roher."

James is flabbergasted. "SHIELD is the other owner of my restaurant? How long have you guys had your hands in my life?"

And Daisy gives him a small, sad smile. "A long time."

She leads him back out of the lab, promising to explain everything soon, and as James follows her he can't get the woman's facial expression out of his head. "They hate me," he says bluntly as they walk along. "Just like the two doctors hate me."

Daisy's response is a sigh. "I told you that you'd have been happier going back to New York."

They quickly reach a small office, where they sit on either side of a desk and Daisy starts pulling something up on a computer there. As she works, he thinks of a question that's been nagging him for a while but is now at the forefront of his mind. "Mr. Roher—or the guy who's not Mr. Roher—called you Skye. And you called yourself that right before that fight in the alleyway. Is that your name? Is 'Daisy' another lie?"

She watches him a few moments as she turns the speakers up—apparently she's preparing to play an audio or video file. Then she explains, "Skye is the name I went by for a long time. Last year I finally found my birth parents, and I found out they'd named me Daisy. So I started going by that professionally; 'Skye' still had some baggage attached to it, because of some hacking I did in the past, and also going by Daisy was a way to honor my dad. He was a good man."

She doesn't mention whether her mother was a good woman, and James thinks it's best not to ask.

"But most of my friends here met me when I was still Skye," she goes on. "They still call me that. So I go by both names these days."

"I recognized it," he confesses. "Skye. I heard you say it to—I guess you had some kind of ear piece in. Right before that fight with the glowing man. You said 'Skye out' and I recognized your name."

A sad smile quirks her lips. "Of all the things that could have stuck with you, you remember how to fire a gun and my name. That's . . . exactly what I would expect from you."

James is silent, thinking of things said and unsaid over the last several days, and after a few moments he is sure that the guess he is about to make is a good one. "So I knew you when you were Skye?"

She nods.

"Were we friends when you were Skye?"

She gives him an unhappy smile. "We were," she says. "And then we weren't."

Whatever she's pulling up appears to be ready, and she turns the computer monitor to face him. She makes eye contact, a questioning expression on her face, and he nods. She nods back and hits Play.

It's a video of an office with the same color scheme and furniture style as the one they're currently in; somewhere in this building then, probably. There's a man sitting at a desk; the video is from behind him and slightly to the side, so only about a quarter of his face is visible, but James is immediately sure it's Coulson. There's a knock on the door, and Coulson calls for the visitor to come in.

James half expects what he's about to see, but that doesn't make it any less shocking when the door opens and in walks his own self. He looks nearly the same age as he is now; this can't have been that long ago. He's in what appears to be dark gray scrubs and his hands and feet are bound, but with enough slack that he can walk. He's flanked by two men: one black, a huge brick wall of a man with a shaved head, and one white, smaller than the other man and with blond hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His guards, obviously.

"Have a seat, Ward," video Coulson says graciously. Ward—Daisy called him that a few times. Is that his real name? Ward? How odd—is it a first or a last name? James turns it over in his mind a few times, but it doesn't strike a single note of recognition.

James' video self sits down at the desk, and now that he's closer to the camera James can see that while it's definitely him, he doesn't look exactly identical. He's got a beard, for one thing—James generally prefers to stay clean-shaven—and he looks like he hasn't showered in a while; James can see it in his hair and face. Most of all, his video self seems . . . James is struggling to understand all the expressions on his own face. He looks angry and sad and tired and hopeful all at once.

_How?_ James wonders, staring at the screen. _How do I not remember this meeting? How do I not remember being in SHIELD custody?_ Because surely that's what's going on here.

He wants to believe it's someone else, an actor who looks like him, until his video self speaks. Yes, that's him; that's undeniably his own voice. And the way this doppelganger moves and holds himself, the expressions on his face—they're all so familiar. They're all _him_. So if this is some kind of hoax, it's a very good one. "I've been thinking about your offer," video James—or 'Ward,' as the case may be—tells Coulson. "And I've decided to take it."

"You're sure?" asks Coulson calmly.

Ward nods. "Forgetting sounds . . . like a pretty good idea. And anyway it's better than spending the rest of my life in prison." He puts his manacled hands up on the desk, and around the edge of the cuff on his right wrist, James can see his scar, the one that's baffled him for so long.

Coulson leans forward. "The Tahiti protocol has only been used a handful of times, and no one's lived with it for longer than a couple years. We don't have any scientific data about its long-term stability."

"You trusted it enough to use it on Skye's father," Ward points out, and back in the real world James fights back a gasp and forces himself not to look at Daisy. Her father? But she said her father was a good man. And this video makes it sound like the Tahiti protocol is an alternative to prison.

"We did," agrees video Coulson. "And we'll use it on you, if you choose. You just need to know the risks. In case it fails I don't want you looking to take revenge on all of us for doing something to you that you weren't well informed about."

"If it fails, will I remember this conversation?"

"Possibly not," acknowledges Coulson. "Which is why I'm videoing this right now. If it fails, I'll show it to you the video so you know agreed to the treatment."

On screen, Ward looks around and finds the video camera, apparently, because he stares right at it and gives a very insincere grin. James finds it extremely unnerving to be looking himself in the eyes like that. "All right, future self," he says to the camera, "this is me telling you that I went into this willingly. Better than being in jail, I'm pretty sure, and better than remembering . . . everything." His face falls, and James supposes he's remembering _everything_ right then.

He turns back to Coulson. "Will you send people to check up on me?"

"Occasionally," confirms Coulson.

Ward looks down at the desk. After a long time, he starts, "I know I have no right to ask. But . . ." But he never finishes.

But maybe he doesn't have to, because Coulson says, "It might be Skye sometimes."

Ward nods, and then he looks up at the big man next to him. "I'm ready to go back to my cell," he says, and there's resentment there. But then, who wouldn't resent being locked up? The man nods and leads Ward from the room, Blondie following behind. The door shuts. And the video ends.

James sits in silence a long time, staring at the desk. He's fairly sure that if he thought about the video as a whole, he'd go stark raving mad in that very instant. So instead he thinks about the little insignificant details. Why did he have his facial hair so long? Didn't he find it itchy? Since when do prisoners wear scrubs? Don't they wear orange jumpsuits? How long has SHIELD had memory-altering technology, and have they considered licensing it to private consumers who want to forget about bad breakups or embarrassing moments? Does Coulson video everything that happens in his office, or only special occasions?

(He tries very hard not to think of the big details: what did they do to him? What did he do to deserve a lifetime in prison? And what relationship did his former self have with Daisy, that of all the SHIELD agents in the world, he asked for her to monitor him?)

After what feels like a long time, Daisy says gently, "James?"

James doesn't look up. "That isn't my name, is it?"

It takes her a moment to answer. "No, it isn't."

"What is my name?"

"That's for Coulson to tell you." She hesitates. "You could still turn back," she says.

And he finally looks up at her. "Could I? Really? Knowing just enough to drive myself crazy thinking about it but nothing more than that?"

She smiles ruefully. "I guess you couldn't. I sure couldn't." She pulls a phone out of her pocket. "So you want me to get Coulson down here?"

James takes a deep breath, and then he nods. No matter what happens from this point on, his life as James Shaughnessy is ruined. Bringing Coulson down is just stomping on the pieces that are already lying broken on the ground. And if he's broken either way, he might as well get some answers while they're available.

Daisy texts something, then looks up at James. "He'll be down here soon," she says, and he nods again.

They sit in silence a long while, until something occurs to him. "Why is SHIELD so interested in me? Whatever awful crime I committed, did I commit it against SHIELD?"

Daisy nods, but he detects her hesitance. "What aren't you telling me?"

She's quiet a moment, then she says, "Before you went bad, you were a SHIELD agent."

"I was a SHIELD agent?" he repeats, shocked. But then something occurs to him, and he adds, "I guess that's how I beat those guys up in that alley."

She nods, a half-smile on her face. "You were good, back then. And you'd done enough fighting that your muscles remembered the movements even when your brain had forgotten." She hesitates, and then her smile blossoms fully. "You trained me, when I first started here."

He's silent a while longer. Finally, "There's one more thing I want to hear from you, not him," he says. "What were we to each other? Were we . . . together?"

She gives him a wry smile. "We were moving in that direction once. For about ten minutes."

"And then?"

The smile falls from her face. "Then you stabbed us all in the back."

James winces. This is unbearable; he's being punished for things he can't remember doing. He's glad that Coulson is coming. At least if he's going to be hated, if he's going to be covered with scars and haunted by bad dreams, he'll know why. That's a comfort, in a way. (Except, from Daisy's hints, he fears it might not be a comfort at all.)

Still, while he's got the chance, he's going to keep asking questions. "Did I love you?" he asks.

She hesitates, then nods.

"Did you love me?" he presses.

Another hesitation. "I thought I could. I thought I did, once, for about ten minutes." She won't make eye contact with him.

He is silent, and a few moments later, there's a knock on the door and Coulson walks in.

. . . . . .

The first thing James finds out is his real name: Grant Douglas Ward. It doesn't sound familiar, but when Coulson adds that he was born in Massachusetts, a light goes off in James' brain. "There was a Senator Ward from Massachusetts, wasn't there?" he recalls. "Burned down his house last year and killed himself and his parents. My friend Gaohan talked about it sometimes—he was convinced the senator was actually murdered. Any relation?"

There's no change in Coulson's expression, but his hands, which have been tapping a pen against his notepad, grow still. "Yes, I believe you're related," he says.

"How closely?"

"I'm not here to answer your questions," says Coulson. "I'm here to give you a choice." (Daisy, who's been sitting beside Coulson, starts looking at her fingernails; James thinks she's nervous or uncomfortable.) "You committed a series of very serious crimes; we caught you last summer. I gave you a choice I'd actually offered you once before: instead of life in jail, you could undergo what we call the Tahiti protocol." He gives James the mild smile that's seems to be his default expression. "Silly name, I know; we really like acronyms in this organization." Oh, it's an acronym. T.A.H.I.T.I, then, not Tahiti. "In that program, your old memories would be buried, and we'd give you new ones. We'd give you the happy childhood and family you'd never been allowed to have. You'd have memories of a normal education and job, instead of the mess you actually lived through. It would all be fake, but you'd be happy. You could move forward without the old baggage to drag you down."

James' brow furrows. "So . . . was it meant to be a punishment?"

And it's Daisy who answers, with a sad smile on her face. "It was meant to be a kindness—better than spending the next fifty years in prison, thinking about everything that had gone wrong in your life, everything you'd lost."

"And we'd never do it to a person if they didn't understand it completely and agree to it," adds Coulson.

"And I agreed to it," says James quietly. He hesitates. "So what happened?"

Coulson shrugs. "The T.A.H.I.T.I. program failed, in your case. Human memory is unbelievably complicated, and altering it is . . . well, it's nearly impossible. It's a miracle that we can do as much as we can. We make the new lives as thorough as possible, but there's only so much tampering the brain can handle at one time, and we sometimes make mistakes when we make assumptions about which memories will be necessary and which won't." He sighs. "We've done eight full memory rewrites in the history of T.A.H.I.T.I. Six took. You're one of the two that didn't. I don't know what makes you different; it may just be that we didn't provide complete enough explanations for the scars, which seemed to be what made you first notice something was wrong. Or maybe you're just very resistant to having your memories altered."

This is insane. This is all so sci-fi and impossible, and if you'd told him a week ago that he'd be sitting in a SHIELD base discussing how his entire life had been constructed by scientists and implanted in his brain, he would have laughed himself silly. But he's here now. But he has proof that Noel Roher is some kind of SHIELD invention. But he's just seen a video of some former criminal version of himself, giving a message to his future self, confirming that he agreed to have his memories altered.

"So what now?" he asks, feeling suddenly impossibly tired.

"I'm giving you that choice again," says Coulson. "You can undergo the T.A.H.I.T.I. protocol again. We'll interview you extensively first, find out exactly what parts of your false memories stood out to you as suspicious, and fix those problems this time. We can even send you back to that restaurant of yours. You'll be James Shaughnessy again."

"Are you sure it would work?" James asks.

Coulson gives him a tight smile. "I was sure last time. So I don't know what my certainty is worth."

That's what James was afraid of. "Option two?"

"We have ways of restoring your memories as Grant Ward. We'll erase your memories as James and you can go back to being your old self. Of course at that point you'll have to go back into custody. But we can send you to a federal penitentiary; I don't have the resources or the inclination to keep you here for too long. You could have a life there. There'd be, you know, gyms and libraries and computer labs and church services. Things like that."

James leans forward and buries his face in his hands. "Are those the only two choices?"

"I suppose you could stay like you are," says Coulson. "With James' flawed memories and only a few pieces of Grant Ward. We'd have to keep you in custody, though. That seems like a poor choice. You'd be locked up and never know why, and you'd keep bumping up against gaps in your memory that would drive you crazy."

James sighs. And then something occurs to him. "Why are you doing this? Isn't it your job to lock up evildoers? Why give me the easier way out?"

Coulson is silent for a long time, and finally James lifts his head to look at him. To his surprise, the director looks sad. "It'd be hard to explain without you having your old memories. So I'll just say, your situation is complicated. You made bad choice after bad choice. But there were also a number of circumstances beyond your control that made it hard for you to make good choices sometimes."

That's cryptic. James sighs. "Can I think about it?"

Coulson nods. "But I'm afraid that from this point out you need to be restrained. You're now something of a flight risk. And Grant Ward is still a criminal."

"Aren't you worried about me running right now?" James asks, even as he puts his hands out for the handcuffs.

Coulson smirks. "Skye and I have a few tricks up our sleeves. You wouldn't get far."

The cold metal snaps around his wrists, and that's strangely familiar too, just like the gun and like Daisy's hand on his. Then he gets ankle cuffs as well, and then they lead him down the hall in a new direction. "Not back to my hospital room?" he asks.

Daisy shakes her head. "Jemma—Dr. Simmons gave you a clean bill of health. So now it's to a holding cell. It's better this way—if you were still in the hospital wing but in custody, we'd have to put you in restraints because the rooms aren't that secure. At least this way you can walk around."

They go down a flight of stairs and end up in a strange room: one half looks like a jail cell, but there's no bars around it. Daisy undoes his cuffs while Coulson keeps a gun trained on him, and then they direct him to go sit on the bed while they cross back to the other side of the room and push a few buttons on a tablet Coulson has. Suddenly there's a hum and a faint shimmer where the cell bars should have been; James examines it and realizes it's some kind of high-tech barrier. This is what being Grant Ward would be like, he realizes: locked up. He doesn't know that he'd like being Grant Ward. But he also doesn't know if, knowing now what it's like, he can really go back to being James Shaughnessy either. He wouldn't know it was a lie. But it would be a lie. Nothing in his life would be real.

Coulson excuses himself then, leaving Daisy and James alone. "So how did you become Grant Ward's keeper?" James asks. "It seems like we have a pretty messy history."

Daisy shrugs. "Because I was the first one to notice that the T.A.H.I.T.I. protocol had failed on you. I wasn't the only person monitoring you, but when I realized there was a problem I insisted on being the one to keep making contact. I have . . . an interest in making sure T.A.H.I.T.I. does what it's supposed to."

He thinks back. "Because of your dad?"

She nods, her face suddenly sad. "He chose to go under as well. He's a good man. He wants so much to love, to help others, but a bunch of terrible stuff happened to him that wasn't his fault, and in response he made a bunch of terrible decisions that _were_ his fault, and then to fix things he had to make another set of terrible decisions. He didn't want to live with what he'd done. And we let him make that decision . . . for my sake. And because he helped SHIELD out of a bad spot. Saved a bunch of lives, in the process."

"So did the same thing happen to me?" James asks.

"You mean did terrible stuff happen to you that wasn't your fault?" She sighs. "Yeah, it did. And then in response you made a bunch of terrible decisions of your own."

They're both quiet for a long time. "Do you think I should do T.A.H.I.T.I. again?" he finally asks.

She sighs, not looking at him. "I don't know," she says. "Part of me says yes; you were happy as James, and I don't know if you'd be happy as Ward. But the other part of me says no, because I know I wouldn't do it myself. I couldn't stand making a decision that would bury the truth like that. Freedom of information is kind one of my guiding principles—'the truth will set you free' and all that. I used to be one of those hackers who'd uncover sensitive documents and dump them on the Internet."

A surprised laugh bursts from James. "Seriously? You?"

She nods, smiling.

"Okay, I've got to hear about this."

So she tells him a little about the group she was part of, the Rising Tide, and how she became a hacker and lived in a van and fought the system. It makes him laugh and distracts him from his current turmoil, and before he knows it fifteen minutes have passed. They seem to have a knack for that—getting so caught up in talking to each other that they lose all sense of time.

When he realizes this, he sobers quickly. Finally, quietly, he asks, "If I do T.A.H.I.T.I. again, I'll forget you?"

She looks down at the floor and nods.

"Would you monitor me again?"

She hesitates, then shakes her head. "I might from a distance, but I wouldn't come into the restaurant anymore. You recognized my name last time. I—" and she looks embarrassed— "I seem to be a memory that sticks with you. I don't want to make you start questioning your new memories." Then she gives him what is probably meant to be an encouraging smile. "But you won't remember me, so you won't even notice you're not seeing me," she points out.

He doesn't want to forget. But he just nods quietly. "And if I go back to being Grant Ward, I'll remember whatever I did to make us start hating each other, but I won't remember that we were friends when I was James?"

Again she shakes her head, her mouth pressed into a tight line.

"Will you hate me again, if I go back to being Grant Ward?"

Her eyes are sad. "I'll remember James," she says. "But Grant Ward and I have a lot of baggage. Anyway, you and I won't have any contact. No matter which option you choose, you and I won't have any contact. Ever again."

"There's no good option, is there?" he asks. "I don't want to spend my life in jail. But T.A.H.I.T.I. feels . . . wrong. Just on principle. Now that I know what it's like, it . . . feels wrong."

"T.A.H.I.T.I. has its uses," she says. "I was glad my dad decided on it. But . . . it's complicated."

"Did you encourage me to do it last time?" he asks.

"We weren't talking to each other last time," she informs him. "I hated you. A lot. But when I heard you'd decided on it, part of me hoped you'd find happiness this way."

He closes his eyes. "What do I do, Daisy?" he whispers.

He hears her sigh. "I don't know, James. I'm sorry." Her watch beeps. "But look, I've got comms duty. Think about it. Take your time."

She turns to go, but he calls her name—actually he calls her Skye. Just to try it out. It feels nice on his tongue. She turns to look at him, and he walks as close as he can to the barrier without touching it. She follows suit, and now they're standing just inches from each other but totally unable to reach out to each other.

"Answer me one last question," he says quietly.

She nods.

"Did you have any feelings for James Shaughnessy at all? As in . . . romantically?"

Daisy looks a little embarrassed. "I knew I could if I let myself," she admits. Then: "Maybe I did, a little."

He can feel that the smile on his face is less than happy. "I guess there's comfort in knowing that there's some version of me you could have cared for. A version that had no intention of stabbing you in the back."

She gives him a tiny sad smile, and he's never wanted anything more than to reach out and touch her. But she's out of his reach. Forever.

He knows he's got to let her go. But before he does, he lets himself say one last thing, three little words that James Shaughnessy has never said to anyone and that Grant Ward will never say to Skye again. "You know what I realized?" he says. "I've known you in two lifetimes now, and I've loved you in both."

And Daisy bites her lip, and she looks down, and wordlessly she leaves.

. . . . . .

He takes three days to make up his mind. In those three days, he finds out that he doesn't hate being in prison as much as he thought he would. Well, obviously he doesn't enjoy it. But he finds he can bear the solitude cheerfully. And if he were sent to a real prison, he wouldn't be alone. Not that he expects to find a best friend in prison, but there would be other people there. That has to count for something.

Daisy doesn't return; when the big black guy brings him down dinner one night, James asks where she is and is told that she's been sent on assignment to Paris for a few days. James hopes she gets to see the Eiffel Tower this time.

For the first day or so, he's leaning toward undergoing T.A.H.I.T.I. again; a lifetime of prison sounds like an awful idea. But every time he considers telling Coulson he's made that decision, he feels an anxious twisting in his stomach, and he knows at least some part of him objects to that idea. So he starts considering the alternative.

And as he goes over and over the question in his mind, he comes up with two absolute facts about his feelings:

1\. The thought of undergoing T.A.H.I.T.I. again, losing the little he's learned about himself again, feels unbearable. He understands what would have drawn him to do it in the first place. But now that he's tried it, he doesn't like the idea of going back.  
2\. On the other hand, he's not eager to go back to a world where his memories of Daisy are so negative. He doesn't want to forget that there's some version of himself that she could have cared for—some version besides the fake version that stabbed her in the back and made her hate him.

James Shaughnessy's life seems farther and farther away from him with each moment. He'd miss Gaohan, he'd miss Luisa, but they'd be absolutely fine without him. Even the restaurant would be fine without him; maybe SHIELD could continue to run it via e-mail. Or maybe they could give control over to Luisa.

But it's not until that Dr. Fitz brings him his lunch one day that he makes up his mind. The young man seems vastly uncomfortable to be down there with him. "Your—your meal," he stutters. There's something strange about the way he acts around James. When he was talking to Dr. Simmons, he seemed fine. But talking to James clearly stresses him out, and when he gets stressed he seems to stutter, and one of hands shakes a little. James hopes desperately that Dr. Fitz isn't responding to some trauma that Grant Ward caused.

The young man studiously avoids meeting James' gaze as he fiddles with the controls that will allow him to pass the meal through, and finally it's too much—James has to speak.

"Dr. Fitz, right?" he speaks up, standing from his bed.

The young man nods, not looking at him.

"I don't know what I did to make you hate me," he says, and Dr. Fitz's gaze flits up to his, and then away again. "But whatever it was, I'm sorry. You seem like a really nice guy, and whatever it was, I'm pretty sure I regret it."

Dr. Fitz is silent a long time. And then he looks up with a tiny, sad smile. "Thanks, Ward." And there's something there—worlds and worlds of history, of hurt, of feeling. He thinks they were close, Grant Ward and Dr. Fitz. And then Ward ruined it.

And in that moment, James' decision is made. He needs his memories back, because once he knows what he's done to hurt these people, what he's done to hurt the world at large, he can start making amends. He couldn't do that as James Shaughnessy, but he can do it as Grant Ward.

A phrase he's heard before pops into his head: "Sometimes the only way out is through." He can't go back, but also he doesn't want to hide in the identity of James Shaughnessy anymore. He wants to move forward. If he's ever going to live comfortably in his own head again, he has to own up to what he did and face what was done to him as Grant Ward, to make amends for the former and come to terms with the latter. This time, the only way out is through.

So the next day he calls Coulson to his cell.

"I've decided," he says. "I want you to restore my memories as Grant Ward."

"You're sure?"

James nods. "I'm tired of being so umoored from reality. I want to know who I am, for real. And I want to start finding a way to deal with it, to maybe find a way to atone for what I've done. And this . . ." He shrugs. "It feels right. When I think about it I know all the reasons I shouldn't, but it feels right."

Coulson looks at him a long time, then acquiesces. "All right."

"Two conditions, though." He hesitates. "I think . . . I think I should talk to someone. Would there be a way to see a therapist in prison?"

That earns him a small smile from Coulson. "If there isn't a good one on staff, I'll find you one."

"Second: I don't want you to erase my memories of James."

Coulson looks surprised. "Why? Having two sets of memories could be problematic. It could be hard to keep them straight—it could cause problems later."

"What will it matter?" asks James. "I'll be in jail."

"Good point," says Coulson. "But why?"

James shrugs. "I've been happy as James. I've been safe and secure; I've been generally liked by the people around me. I feel like that was rare in my real life. It could be a comfort to remember that for six months, I made people happy with good Italian food."

Coulson nods, and appears to think for a moment. "That's doable. Any other requests?"

Yes, several, most having to do with Skye. But he knows what the answer will be. So he just shakes his head no.

"We should be able to do all that. It's an easier procedure than T.A.H.I.T.I. We could be ready to go tomorrow morning."

Tomorrow? When is Daisy home?

He doesn't realize he's spoken aloud until Coulson says mildly, "She's out on a mission."

Embarrassed, James looks at the floor. Coulson's quiet for a long time. "James," he says finally, "about Daisy. She's . . ."

"I know," says James. "I know nothing is ever going to happen. Whether I'm James or Ward. That's a lost cause." He takes a deep breath, pauses, lets it out. "Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter if we do it before she gets back. I'm not losing any memories this time—no goodbyes."

Coulson looks at him a long time, and then he nods. "You're sure about this?" he presses.

James nods. "Are you recording this conversation too, just in case I ever claim I didn't actually want my memories back?"

Coulson smiles and nods at the video camera in the corner. "Currently in the process," he says.

James nods, clasping his hands together in something like prayer—his fake parents had been devout fake Episcopalians and even knowing those memories aren't real can't stop that influence being part of his mind. Let this be the right choice, he prays.

Then he takes a deep breath. "All right," he tells Coulson. "Tomorrow I'll become Grant Ward again."

. . . . . .


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your kind words! I know this is really coming down to the wire, in terms of getting this out before season 3 started, but Gmail ate chapter 3 over the weekend. Seriously, it was just gone, and I had to rewrite about ten thousand words. So this is a PSA, everyone: make backups. And maybe don't use Gmail as a word processor.
> 
> This chapter was a difficult one to write. It involves getting inside the head of a man who not only suffered abuse, neglect, and borderline brainwashing, but who also underwent a super sci-fi memory altering program that's now falling apart, leaving him unsure of what's real. That's a pretty particular and unusual set of circumstances, and it's not easy to guess how someone would react. Any story about him is going to involve a certain amount of conjecturing. This is my personal take on where he is right now, emotionally and mentally; you might have a different take, and that's equally valid.
> 
> Complicating matters even more is the fact that many of the tragedies of Ward's past are, unfortunately, all too familiar to some readers, and I'm trying to be sensitive to that. It's a delicate process, trying to balance the fact that he is a survivor of abuse with the fact that he’s done terrible things. I'm also trying to balance the fact that most of us reading this story care a lot about Ward with the fact that canonically, right now, most of SHIELD would as soon shoot Ward as look at him. I know there might be readers of this story who think I'm being far too harsh on someone who's been treated so terribly all his life, just as I know there might be readers who think I've been far too lenient on a backstabbing murderer.
> 
> The point of all this: know, dear readers, whatever you think of this last chapter—if you are upset about how I've depicted his thought processes, or about how other characters treat him, or about the choices he makes—that this was a good faith effort on my part to give a fair shake to the character as I currently see him, and to be realistic according to what we've seen in the show.
> 
> Also I don’t remember where I got the the idea that Ward’s little sister’s name is Rose; I know I’ve seen it in multiple fics. So if you started that . . . good job. It’s fanon, as far as I'm concerned.
> 
> WARNING: This is where the abuse warnings from chapter one start to apply. Consider yourself forewarned.

. . . . . .

The last thing to be done is to call Luisa and Gaohan over Skype. James tells them that he's decided to get out of the restaurant business and that Mr. Roher will be contacting in the next day to talk about the new management arrangements. He tells them that he's going to pursue a lifelong dream of living in Europe, but that when he makes it back, he'll visit. He'll never visit. But they don't need to know that.

Then it's an afternoon of tests administered by Drs. Fitz and Simmons. Though Dr. Fitz does smile at him a few times, they're both tense around him, as though his decision to get his memories back made him automatically turn into this man who apparently betrayed them all, and it's tiring to be around but it only strengthens his resolve that he's doing right thing.

Then it's morning and he's being led to a room with a machine not unlike the MRI machine from a few days ago. It's flanked by Blondie and the Brick Wall, and Drs. Fitz and Simmons fiddle with machinery nearby. Coulson, who brought him down there, looks at him one last time, a question in his eyes. James nods, and Coulson gestures toward the slab he's obviously supposed to lay on.

"We have to restrain you, for your own safety," says Coulson as James climbs onto the slab and the Brick Wall starts putting restraints around his ankles and then his wrists. "Reaction to returning memories is sometimes . . . violent."

None of this is helping his resolve to see this through, so he grits his teeth. "Let's get started."

"You'll see flashes of things," says Coulson, and James wonders if the director has ever used this machine himself. "Your brain will grab onto the most dramatic or meaningful memories and experience them as they come back to the surface. But the other memories, the less exciting ones, they're coming back too. Understand?"

James nods and takes a deep breath, and Coulson nods at Dr. Simmons, who pushes a button.

And suddenly everything feels blue. There's a blue light all around him and a pressure coming in from all sides to his head, increasing in pressure until it's all he can do keep from scrambling out of the machine, and this is so bizarre and is it even working—

. . . . . .

"The Tahiti protocol has only been used a handful of times, and no one's lived with it for longer than a couple years." That's Coulson speaking, but it wasn't Coulson—James was looking right at him and didn't see his lips move. And suddenly there are images in his mind; it's the video from earlier, but he's not seeing it from the camera's perspective, he's seeing it from Grant Ward's. This is a memory. This is Ward's memory. "We don't have any scientific data about its long-term stability."

The scene plays out, and then suddenly it changes. Ward's being led down into Vault D, where James has been the last few days, and suddenly James feels a rush of irritation and resignation. These must be Ward's feelings, how he feels about the memory or how he felt at the moment the memory was made. James can hear, as though it was spoken aloud, the thought _Coulson does always love to put me in this same cell_.

The scene changes again and Ward is in a warehouse somewhere, holed up in a back office, cornered and weaponless. James knows somehow that SHIELD is closing in, and he is overwhelmed by the wave of hatred Ward feels for the organization. But it's also tinged with shame: shame that Skye and Coulson will see him like this, followed by shame that he even still cares what those two think.

Now he's standing guard at the door of a jewelry store while a collection of shady-looking characters rifle through the cases. Ward doesn't want to think about the people whose livelihood he's ruining; these people have to learn that trusting in the system won't protect them. Everyone has to learn that eventually. And he needs the money for his cause: the new Hydra.

Now he's in a bar with those same shady-looking characters, telling them he's in charge now, telling them he wants a team by his side again. Someone asks what he's after, and he looks down at a photo on the bar of a beautiful girl—not Skye. The name comes to him easily: Kara. "Closure," he says."

Now Kara, some kind of strange scar across her face, is dying in his arms, and he's looking in horror at her and at the gun in his hand. The gun that's still awfully close to the bullet wounds that are killing her. _He_ killed her. Ward killed her. He loved her—well, he cared about her, anyway—and he shot her in the stomach and now she's dying. He only ever wanted to protect her, to make up for all the times he's been unable to protect the people he cares about; but she was disguised as someone else and he unknowingly killed her. "Baby," she says one last time, and Ward swears revenge.

Now he's standing in front of that blonde woman from a few days ago—Bobbi Morse, Ward's memories helpfully supply. She's tied up at a table, and there are . . . are those needles? Long needles sticking out from under her fingernails, covered with black and drying blood. Her face is bruised and bloody. And in the moment before Ward's thoughts kick in, James is horrified by the image. This looks like . . . this is torture. She is being tortured. Why isn't he doing anything about it? Why is he just standing there? Unless . . . James feels bile rise in his throat. Did he do that to her?

. . . . . .

"I need to stop," James calls weakly, and the machine's humming slows and then stops. He lays there, that image burned into his brain, convulsing slightly. It's Dr. Fitz who realizes what's going on first, and he comes to the side of the gurney with a trash can just in time for James to turn and vomit into it.

"Bobbi," he says softly when he's done, staring up at the ceiling. "Why in the world did I do that? What could she possibly have done to make me think she deserved that?"

No one says anything, but the Brick Wall looks angry; a friend of hers, maybe? After the silence has stretched on for too long, Coulson says, "You did well for a first run."

"How long was I under?"

It's Dr. Simmons who answers. "Six minutes," she says primly.

It's going to be a long day.

"It gets better," says Coulson. "Once you really get into the process, the memories start coming faster. Which is good—less time to focus on any given one." He hesitates. "You ready to go back under?"

He's not. But he thinks that to stop now would be worse than to keep going—he'd never know why he did these terrible things. So he nods, and the machine hums to life again.

. . . . . .

He's in a military base somewhere—Hydra, according to Ward's memories—with Coulson, Skye, Fitz and Simmons, and a beautiful Chinese woman who Ward knows as May. They're meant to be infiltrating it, but suddenly Simmons throws a disintegration grenade at him. She misses, but James is as shocked as if she hadn't. Professional, prim Dr. Simmons, who as a doctor ought to respect life, has just tried to kill him. What did he do to deserve that?

Now he's in a bar with Kara, laughing as she throws darts at a dartboard; she's so drunk that most of them hit the floor instead. Laughing too, she stumbles over and winds her arms around his waist. "I love you," she says, entirely unexpectedly, and Ward freezes. He wishes he could say it back, but he can't, not honestly. He cares about Kara, really, but the fact is that he doesn't love her; the fact is that he's always known that she feels far more for him than he does for her. Luckily she's too drunk to notice that he doesn't respond.

Now he's in what appears to be a commercial kitchen, collapsing on the ground with searing pain on his side. Skye is standing unapologetically over him, a gun pointed right at him, as she reminds him never to turn his back on the enemy. "You taught me that," she says as she walks past him, leaving him to die on the floor. Those gunshot scars he couldn't explain? Skye is the one who shot him. _Daisy_ is the one who shot him. _How could she?_ echoes through his mind twice, once as Ward thinks it of Skye, and once as James thinks it of Daisy.

Now he's in a forest with a middle-aged man who kind of looks like him: his brother, Christian Ward. The senator Christian Ward; apparently Grant Ward is a well-connected man. Christian is dirty and there are tears on his face, and he seems frightened. But Ward is putting his arm around his shoulder, and for a few minutes it seems all is well. But now they're in a house and Ward is locking Christian in a closet along with two older people, well-dressed and well-groomed and looking terrified: their parents. And now Ward is looking for matches in the kitchen drawers. Gaohan was right: Senator Ward was murdered.

. . . . . .

"I need to stop," says James, dry heaving. He doesn't throw up this time, but it's a near thing. He lays silently a moment, then asks, "Why? Why did I kill my family?"

No one answers, which is starting to irk James. "Will I at least find out if I keep watching?"

Coulson answers somberly. "Yes." He hesitates. "Are you ready to continue?"

Again, he'd really rather not. But now he has to. Now he has to know if he had a reason to want his family dead or if he's just a terrible person by nature. So he nods.

. . . . . .

He's back down in Vault D, and Skye is telling him that they're turning him over to his brother, and Ward is terrified. How could they do this to him? Don't they know what a monster he is? (James, on the other hand, feels a small amount of relief to know that at least Ward apparently had some sort of reason for hating his family.)

Now Skye is replaced by Fitz, but the engineer was not expecting to see Ward and he is horrified; he starts hyperventilating. "It's really good to see you," Ward says uselessly, but it's true. Although maybe it's not so good to see him, because now Fitz is sucking the oxygen from the room, telling Ward he ought to know what it feels like. James winces. Did Ward somehow deprive Fitz of oxygen?

Now Skye is back and it's the first time he's seen her in ages. And even though he's down in the basement, he feels like the room is full of sunlight. Too bad she's looking at him like she hates him.

Now he's waking up in a hospital bed and everything has changed. He's bandaged and bruised, and when he glances at his arm he sees his right wrist is stitched and bandaged up. _So that's where that scar came from,_ he thinks. _Apparently I really did do it to myself_. But that's all in the past. Ward has had an epiphany; he's seen all the mistakes he made; he knows he can live a better life than he has been living. And he can help SHIELD take down Hydra. He just needs Coulson (or better, Skye) to come down so he can tell them he's turned over a new leaf. He hopes they come soon.

Now he's in handcuffs, and May and Coulson are telling him with some relish that Garrett is dead. Ward is hurt and upset by that, but also the tiniest bit relieved. It's all over now, the crazy writing and the increasingly erratic behavior; Garrett hasn't been Garrett for a while now. It's all over now, doing things he sometimes didn't want to do, because Garrett told him to. Meanwhile, James just wonders who Garrett is.

Now he's facing Skye across a room full of computers, and he wishes he had a way to erase the hatred from her face—to help her understand. But that's impossible; he knows it is. And he's not proud of it, but he's cruel to her. He's heartbroken over her, and he takes it out on her; it's shameful, but he wants her to feel as hurt as he does. But Skye doesn't react. "You're just . . . weak," she says. And both Ward and James think, _She's right._

Now he's standing in front of a door with a window in it. Fitz and Simmons are on the other side shouting at him, begging for their lives. Fitz tries to appeal to his better side, his affection for the team, but Simmons thinks her friend is wasting his breath. "I know you care about us!" Fitz yells, and Ward responds too quietly to hear that he's right, he does. But that doesn't stop him from pulling the lever, knowing it will eject the pod from the plane—from a plane that is currently flying over the ocean. _It's better this way,_ Ward is thinking, but James is too busy being horrified to wonder what that means. He's just killed them.

. . . . . .

"Stop," he all but whispers, and the machine powers down.

"How far did you get?" asks Coulson

He says nothing, but his eyes flit over to Fitz, whose expression darkens. So he looks away, but that doesn't help anything because his gaze just falls on Simmons instead. "Why did I do it?" he asks.

Simmons' mouth tightens into an angry line. "Garrett ordered you to," he says.

Fitz's expression is only slightly less angry. "You decided you cared more about him than us."

He can't look at either of them; he can't look at anyone. Instead he looks up at the ceiling and closes his eyes, feeling thick hot tears streaming from under his eyelids.

. . . . . .

Now he's finally seeing Garrett, a middle-aged man with a predatory smile and some kind of cyborg torso implant that's keeping him alive. He's not doing well; the technology is failing. And Ward would do absolutely anything to keep that from happening. Garrett is everything to him, and the man is not dying on Ward's watch.

Now he's in some metal-lined compartment, collapsed on the ground while the pain in his chest becomes unbearable. Ward's thoughts helpfully inform him that Mike Peterson has stopped Ward's heart on Garrett's command, in order to get information from Skye (which shocks James; this man who Ward would do anything for is letting him die in order to get information? What kind of messed-up relationship do they have?). He hears a screaming voice, faintly. Skye! She's demanding Mike bring him back, promising she'll give up the information—all to save him, even though he's a backstabbing traitor. And Ward and James are both overwhelmed by how much they love her.

Now he and Skye are in a diner and Skye is at her laptop, asking him what he would say if he could talk to Garrett one last time. "Would you tell him he's disgusting? Would you tell him he's a disgusting, backstabbing traitor?" And Ward's heart is in his throat—does she know? Has he lost her forever? Does she _know_? And then she turns her laptop around and shows him that she's tipped the police off about where they are. She knows. And his heart sinks so low he thinks he'll never find it again. He's lost her.

Now he and Skye are on a couch, kissing, and it's perfect. It's everything he hoped it would be, and she's the only girl he'll ever love, he knows it. They're in an impossible situation right now, but they can work it out. Maybe he can keep his true allegiance from her. Or maybe, whispers some better part of him, he can tell her now, in a way that doesn't scare her off for good. Maybe he can make her understand. But just then she finds blood behind his ear and he bolts. She doesn't need to know that he killed Agent Koenig.

Now Garrett is beating the daylights out of him. It's part of his cover—he has to look like he's been in a fight—but there's more to it; he can feel it in Garrett's punches. He's been weak lately; he's nearly screwed up the mission. So Garrett takes pleasure in these punches because Ward deserves it. And James wonders why in the world Ward put up with it.

Now he's watching Coulson lead Garrett away in handcuffs, and all he can think is _no no no no no._ Coulson knows about Garrett; Garrett's going away to the Fridge. And that means it's time for Ward to come out of hiding and rescue him. That means leaving the team behind—these people that he's come to love, quite against his will. But he can't turn his back on Garrett for them. The team has been around for a few months; Garrett's been the only person who's truly cared about him in 30 years.

Now he's in a closet, preparing to take down Hydra agents (to preserve his cover, of course), and he finds himself telling Skye honestly about his feelings: that he isn't a good man, that he's made terrible mistakes. Thomas Nash isn't the first person he's killed, but the man was the absolute epitome of helplessness. And it's not helping his guilt that this is the first cold-blooded murder that Skye's been around for. But to his surprise, instead of being disgusted, she kisses him.

. . . . . .

For the first time since they started, he calls for a break because he's tired, not because he's horrified. And he finds himself smiling as he rests.

"Some of it was good?" Coulson asks.

"Yeah, some of it was good."

. . . . . .

Coulson was right; the memories have been speeding up, and now they're coming along at a nice brisk clip. He sees himself mind-controlled by an Asgardian. He sees himself overcome with relief when Skye is awake and snarky in her hospital bed; he sees himself overcome with worry when she is shot and nearly contacts Garrett to chew him out for giving Quinn the order to shoot her. He sees himself sleep with May—he slept with May? He sees himself bond with the team; it turns it he genuinely did care about Fitz and Simmons, which makes what he did to them later even more horrible. He goes on a mission with Fitz and finds the guy is surprisingly okay to have at your back: smart, resourceful, good under pressure. He jumps from a plane to save Simmons and it's partly to establish his cover and it's partly because the thought of her dying is genuinely unthinkable. He sees himself training Skye, trying to break her of her habit of saying "bang" when she shoots a gun, which is simultaneously obnoxious and adorable. He sees himself agree to be her SO, which is probably asking for trouble but he can't help himself; he wants to be around her.

And now he meets Skye for the first time. She's everything she hates, with her naive idea that giving people too much information is somehow doing them a favor. She's smug and she's pushy and she's not as smart as she thinks she is. But she's just his type, physically, and there's something about her fierce spirit and bright smile that captivates him quite against his will. And Ward realizes he might be in trouble.

. . . . . .

Things are easier as they speed through the time before he joined Coulson's team, stopping occasionally for breaks and for water and once for a quick lunch. They're easier partly because they're going so fast now, and partly because things were actually good in this portion of his life—and by "good," James means "he hasn't had to push any friends out of a plane lately."

Ward runs missions for SHIELD, and occasionally for Garrett. He loves those latter ones; they feel like him and Garrett against the world, just as it should be. But James, watching the proceedings with an outsider's perspective, sees all the affection in this SO-rookie relationship is on Ward's side. Garrett gives Ward all the difficult and dangerous bits, and only seems interested in Ward's utility, as a tool. Ward would take a bullet for Garrett. But Garrett, James can see, would step aside and let the bullet hit Ward.

Now he's living in the woods for some reason, his only company a dog named Buddy, and Garrett has come to visit him. Ward is only 18 at this point; why is he living in the woods, and why is Garrett letting him? Garrett has come to tell him that he's been accepted into SHIELD. The bad news: he wants Ward to kill Buddy, and both Ward and James are horrified at the idea. This is Garrett, who he's never disobeyed, so he pulls the gun out with shaky hands . . . and can't do it. But it doesn't matter, because Garrett kills the dog anyway before backhanding Ward. And James and Ward both feel sick.

Young Ward lives in the woods for years, scavenging and stealing, with just the dog for company. At 16 he is confident in his ability to survive, but at 15 he is huddling under a tree in the rain, starving because he doesn't know how to get his own food, miserable and cold and thinking that coming along with Garrett might have been a mistake. Garrett visits sometimes and James sees that it's not that he's allowing Ward to live in the woods: he's forcing him to. It seems like an awful thing to do to a 15-year-old boy, and James wonders why no one ever questioned the disappearance of Grant Ward and why Ward so willingly followed the man into the woods.

Eventually he finds out: young Ward, only 15, is in juvie. Part of him is defiant, thinking _They deserved it, they deserved everything I did_ , but most of him is frightened, wondering what's to come next. And then Garrett walks in with that predatory smile and offers to take him away from this, make him strong. He flatters Ward, just enough, and adult James sees how insincere it is but teenaged Ward laps it up like honey; no one has ever complimented him, no one has ever believed in him. _Ah_ , thinks James, suddenly very weary. _So that's how it started_. And he calls for a break.

. . . . . .

"So," he says as he sips at his water, "apparently SHIELD gives its agents pretty free rein."

Coulson is puzzled. "I'm sorry?"

"I mean Agent Garrett," James explains. "This guy basically kidnapped a 15-year-old and abandoned him in the woods so he could mold him into the perfect tool. What does SHIELD stand for, again? Protection?"

Coulson's mouth is set into a firm line. "We don't monitor our agents' lives when they're off-duty," he says. "We had no idea what he was doing." But he looks uncomfortable.

 _As he should be_ , thinks James.

. . . . . .

Young Ward loves military school. He turns out to have a knock for that sort of thing, and more importantly, he's away from home. But he's been getting letters from his younger sister Rose, and reading between the lines he knows that in the absence of his favorite victim, Christian has turned on their sister. and Grant knows something must be done.

His childhood might be the hardest part to endure, with his mother and his brother and with their father not caring what they do to each other as long as the bruises don't show up where his rich friends will see them. James doesn't know which is worse: his mother, with her words like knives and the casual way she grabs little Grant's arm and presses the lit end of a cigarette to it, or his brother, who in another life might have been a nice guy but in this life cracked under the pressure of their mother's constant abuse and began adding to it. And since Christian can't touch precious Thomas and he's not going to hit a girl, Grant becomes his favorite victim.

James doesn't realize he's crying until he hears Skye's voice beside the machine, asking what's going on, why haven't they stopped as James to obviously needs to. "Don't stop!" he calls through gritted teeth. "I'm almost done."

It's almost over now. Going to his father at age 8 and asking if he can do something to stop Mother. And being backhanded for his troubles.

His second-grade teacher noticing a bruise just the size of a handprint on little Grant's arm, but doing nothing about it.

(James is still crying and at some point someone takes his hand. He recognizes that hand: it's Skye, and he squeezes tight.)

The day Rose is born, and Grant looks at her perfect face and promises he won't let their mother hurt her—not knowing then how often he'll fail to do so.

Now it's his first memory. He tracks dirt into the house and his mother yells at him, making him cry. So she yells at him to stop, and of course that doesn't help him calm down. He keeps crying, she keeps shouting, and finally to shut him up she grabs his arm and squeezes until it hurts.

And then it's over; his mind goes blissfully blank. "It's over," he calls out weakly. "I'm done." The machine switches off. And before anyone can say anything, he drops off to sleep.

. . . . . .

Grant Douglas Ward wakes in dim silence and soon realizes where he is: Vault D in the SHIELD base. Coulson does enjoy putting him there, doesn't he?

He doesn't remember how he got captured just now; actually his thoughts are a bit jumbled. He has the strangest feeling that he's been out for an incredibly long time: not hours or days, but months. What in the world is—

James Shaughnessy.

Ottavio's.

T.A.H.I.T.I.

He drops his head back on the pillow and sighs.

"You're awake," comes a voice to his left, and he looks over quickly to see Fitz standing there.

Happiness rises in his throat and he quashes it; the last time he was happy to see Fitz in his cell, the man tried to kill him. Fitz passes a granola bar through the barrier. "I figured you'd be hungry," he says.

"That's very kind of you," Grant says cautiously, coming forward to get the granola bar.

Fitz shrugs. "Well, James was a nice guy."

"I know," says Grant with a sigh. "I wish he'd been real."

And Fitz gives him an odd look as he leaves.

. . . . . .

No one comes down for the next few hours; Grant's not sure whether they're giving him time to recuperate or they all refuse to see him. So he sits on the edge of his bed, and sometimes he paces, as he tries to sort through everything in his head: making sure his memories are all back, and seeing them anew with the filter of James' experiences.

Despite Coulson's worries, it's not hard at all to keep the false memories separate from the real. Compared to Ward's memories, James' are shallow, lacking detail, like scenes from a movie with cheaply-made sets. Except for those months that he actually lived in New York; those are as bright as a flame, and he is continually drawn back to them: the cozy restaurant on the corner of the block. Gaohan and Luisa and Annie smiling at him from across the room. Warm light pouring from the windows on a cold night. He might have been an idiot for giving that up, he thinks more than once.

But then into his memories will walk Daisy, as he knew her then, and he'll change his mind. Because to remember Skye holding his hand, telling him about her travels, worrying for his safety, admitting that she could have had feelings for him: he doesn't want to lose that.

It is both better and worse to have James' memories as well as his own. Better, because James lived a much happier life than Ward, and he takes comfort in those memories, even though many of them are fake. Worse, in so many ways. The things that he did as Ward were sometimes terrible, but he was always able to do them because in the moment he did them, he felt justified. He was justified in being a mole inside SHIELD because SHIELD was a corrupt organization who would have let Garrett die. He was justified in killing his family because they made his childhood a nightmare. He was justified in torturing and nearly killing Bobbi because she'd led Hydra right to Kara and Kara deserved to hear Bobbi admit what she'd done. He was justified in restarting Hydra because SHIELD had taken away everything he cared about. They weren't good justifications, but he'd been buried so deep in his own anger that they felt right at the time. That's how he could stand before Bobbi with those needles in his hands, how he could point that gun at Victoria Hand, and not feel a thing. That's how he could betray May and Coulson, drop Fitzsimmons from that plane, protect the man who shot Skye, despite the voice in his head screaming _Don't do this, what are you thinking?_

But having lived as James, and then coming back to Grant Ward, feels like taking a step outside his own head and seeing his actions in a new light . . . finally seeing who was really to blame. SHIELD was not to blame for Garrett—he'd known going into that mission that there might not be an extraction for him and he went anyway. Bobbi was not to blame for Kara—it was part of a plan to dismantle Hydra, and she had no idea that Kara was at that safe house, and anyway when Kara joined SHIELD she'd agreed to the idea that her safety might need to be sacrificed to protect others. SHIELD was not to blame for Kara's death—she was the one who disguised herself as May and Ward is the one who shot her. (His parents and Christian are still guilty of exactly what he blamed them for, but he sees now that this doesn't give him the right to murder them.) To have all his justifications stripped away makes him feel naked, vulnerable—and regretful.

And yet, it reminds him of how he used to bathe when he lived in the woods. When he got too filthy, he'd go down to the stream near his camp. It flowed from the mountains and was cold as ice, summer or winter—so cold that his breath would catch and his muscles would all but stop working. He'd grab handfuls of sand from the bottom of the stream and scrub the filth right off of him. And then he'd lay on the bank, shivering and smarting and tingling. It hurt, plenty. But when it was done, he'd be clean. It was worth the pain, because he'd be clean.

That's how he feels right now. To see his former actions in this new light is painful, but now that he understands the seriousness of what he's done, now that he knows where the blame really lies, now that he can properly apologize to the people he's hurt, he's going to be clean.

He comes up with a new mantra in those long thoughtful hours: he's been the recipient of violence all his life, but that doesn't give him carte blanche to perpetuate that violence. To think that having people do terrible things to you gives you the right to do terrible things to others is exactly what Garrett thought—that's why he felt justified in hurting and killing who knows how many people to save his own skin. And if there's one thing Grant's sure of, it's that he doesn't want to be anything like Garrett ever again.

. . . . . .

Coulson comes down with his lunch eventually. It's something steaming on a tray, which is new—the last time Grant was here, he didn't get warm meals. The director presses the control that lets him pass it through the barrier, and Grant takes it and goes back to his bed. But Coulson doesn't leave right away. "I thought I'd wait for the tray," he says, and Grant shrugs and starts wolfing down the stir fry; it feels like it's been a month since he ate last. He doesn't look at Coulson, though; memories of certain of their interactions have put the director on his bad list.

Coulson lets him get through the stir fry, and then he speaks up. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Grant shrugs. "No problems keeping the two sets of memories straight; it's obvious which ones are fake. So I'm fine."

Coulson nods. "And does having both sets change how you feel about . . . things?"

Grant fights the urge to roll his eyes. "You mean did living as James make me regret the things I did as Ward?"

"Yes, that."

Grant is silent a moment. Then, "Yes. But then I regretted a lot of them as I was doing them."

Coulson raises his eyebrows at this but doesn't respond. Grant finishes the fried rice and orange juice in silence, then walks up to the barrier. Coulson steps forward to take the tray, but Grant doesn't had it to him.

"I've got a bone to pick with you," he says finally, staring down at the empty tray. "After my suicide attempts when you had me in custody, I woke up from sedation and I'd had . . . an epiphany. I knew what I was, what I'd done, all the ways Garrett had gotten into my head and messed me up. And I wanted to change. I wanted to turn over a new leaf, get back some shred of self-respect by giving you intel to take down Hydra, then serve out my punishment and try to get my life in order. I told you this, more than once. And do you know how you responded?" He finally looks up at the director.

Coulson says nothing.

"You didn't care. You were too personally hurt by what I'd done, and it was more important to your wounded feelings that you saw me suffer than that you did the sensible thing—and the right thing. You ignored me, and you found out almost nothing of what I could have told you about Hydra. And then you tried to give me to my brother—the man who used to wake me up in the middle of the night with a knife at my throat and make me lie there while he told me all the things he could do to me with that knife. And I panicked—of course I panicked—and I went back to my old ways. I'd tried to put my trust in the system and the system responded by trying to hand me over to my abuser. Everything I did after that is my doing, I know that. But you had a chance to stop it, and to take down Hydra so much earlier than you did, and you didn't take it because you wanted to see me hurt. And if that's how you run SHIELD, it's a wonder it's running at all."

Coulson has been staring at him this whole time, saying nothing, and after a few moments, he takes the tray from Grant and walks away without a word. And Grant watches him go with a feeling of grim satisfaction. He doesn't hate Coulson, really; in fact, in a lotof ways he reluctantly respects the man. But he sees now that he's a blind spot for him—that the director makes bad decisions where Grant Ward is concerned. So why shouldn't Grant point this out? Coulson might learn something from it, and Grant's going to prison for life either way.

. . . . .

The Brick Wall—Grant vaguely remembers that his name is Mack—brings his dinner, and then his breakfast the next morning. Grant doesn't mind the guy, who doesn't say much but also doesn't look at him like he hates him, but he is curious why certain other people—a certain other person—don't visit. And finally, at breakfast, he decides to throw his pride to the wind; after all, he's never going to see any of these people again. "Is Skye around?"

Mack's expression doesn't change much, but in his eyes Grant sees sympathy. He doesn't much like being pitied, but at least the big man isn't mocking him. "She's been out on assignment since just after you passed out."

And Grant feels his heart lighten. This way, he can tell himself that she might have visited, if she were here. And who knows—it could even be true.

Not long after his breakfast is finished, Grant gets another visitor: a middle-aged man he vaguely recognizes as May's ex-husband. Dr. . . . Garner, he remembers. A psychiatrist or a therapist or something of the sort. He doesn't much want to be analyzed, and for a brief moment is tempted to hint at his and May's romantic history, just to make the man uncomfortable. But he doesn't, in the end; Ward might have enjoyed needling strangers, but Grant finds it doesn't sound that fun.

"Coulson asked me down here," Dr. Garner says. "He wants me to make sure that having these false memories isn't going to cause any problems."

 _And to make sure I don't restart Hydra while I'm in prison,_ Ward thinks. Of course the good doctor would neglect to mention that.

So he's shocked when Dr. Garner adds, "And to determine if you're likely to fall back into old patterns of criminal behavior."

Grant has to admit, he's won over a bit by that piece of honestly . . . which is probably precisely why Dr. Garner did it. Still, the man gives off on an air of professionalism, like he takes his job very seriously. Grant gets the sense that the doctor will give him a fair shake. So he makes a split second decision: he'll cooperate.

The doctor asks him how he's feeling, is he having trouble with his memories, all about his life as James, and Grant answers honestly. Then it's his life as Ward, his life on the Bus, his life with Garrett, his childhood. Those questions are much harder, but to his surprise it's a comfort to talk about a lot of it. No one's ever asked before. When he was a kid, no one wanted to listen; no one believed that the Wards were capable of what Grant said they'd done. And once he was in SHIELD, no one paid much attention, not even during his psych evals; he was good at acting fine, and no one dug any deeper than that. So to bring all this stuff to the surface is good, in the end; difficult but . . . liberating.

When the questions finally come to a close, Grant asks, "So do I pass muster?" It's a little sarcastic, but it's not for Dr. Garner; it's for Coulson, in case he's listening.

Dr. Garner smiles. "Mr. Ward," he says, "I think you're going to be just fine."

. . . . . .

He spends the rest of the afternoon doing what resistance training he can in his cell; James was pretty good about going to the gym, but he did workouts suited to a restaurateur, not a man of action, and Grant's lost a lot of muscle mass that he intends to get back. And when dinner time rolls around, that's when Skye finally, _finally_ walks into his cell.

Her posture and her expression are wary, but she's not angry or disgusted, and that's progress. She's brought him soup, which she passes through to him, and then they stand there across the barrier from each other, not looking the other in the face.

"I thought I'd wait until you were finished, rather than come back for the bowl," she says finally, and he takes that as a hint to sit down and eat.

"How are . . . things down here?" she asks, a bit awkwardly.

"Fine," he says, then amends, "Boring. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm almost looking forward to getting transferred. At least I'll be able to leave my cell sometimes and do things."

"Well," she says, "it's close. Coulson is still trying to decide which prison to choose—he wants to pick one with a good reputation for how it treats its prisoners—and I'm creating your new records in the meantime."

Silence falls between them until he thinks of a conversation topic. "Mack told me you were out on assignment. How did it go?"

"Really well," she says, and then there's silence again. But she doesn't seem like she's ignoring him, quite, more like she doesn't know how much she wants to say. So he decides to try again.

"I never found out—what happened with that guy in the alleyway? The one who shot lightning?"

"Reynolds," she confirms. "He . . . the three guys he was with are with us now. He lied to them about why SHIELD was looking for them; he said we wanted to arrest them. So that's why they were so defensive. But when we explained we just wanted to help them control their powers, and meet other people like them, they were totally into it. But Reynolds . . ." She sighs. "He wasn't willing to give up a life of crime. He'd been using his powers to rob stores and banks . . . He couldn't leave that behind." She seems downcast at the thought.

He gives her what he hopes is a sympathetic smile. "You can't save everyone. Some people won't let you."

There's an awkward silence after that; Grant wonders if she's thinking, like he is, of Coulson's dearly held belief that you could save anyone, if you get to them early enough. And he wishes, not for the first time, that Coulson had gotten to him before Garrett had. He still has mixed feelings about Coulson, but he sees that Coulson was to Skye what Garrett was to Ward . . . only Coulson didn't use fear. Coulson didn't use his fists. Coulson didn't make people shoot their dogs.

"Are you done?" Skye says finally. He wants to say no—if this is the last time he's going to see her, he wants to stretch it out as long as possible—but then she adds, "I've got comms shift, but I'll try to come by tomorrow."

And as he hands her his dishes, he thinks his little cell has never looked so bright.

. . . . . .

Mack brings his breakfast, but Skye brings him both his lunch and his dinner the next day, and then breakfast the day after. At first things are as awkward as that first meeting, but slowly they warm up to each other again. It's tough finding things to talk about; his past is a difficult subject, as is his future. But eventually they find the perfect conversation topic: his old missions for SHIELD (and occasionally Garrett). She seems endlessly amused by his stories, which she insists would make great Bond movies, and she listens in fascination as he tells her about impersonating Russian cab drivers and parachuting off the Burj Khalifa and the time he had to hide for two days in a barrell.

"No way," she laughs. "How big was the barrell?"

He shows her with his hands, and she laughs again. "No way. You're making that up, Ward."

He hesitates; he hasn't gotten around to bringing this up yet. But this feels like a good moment. "I've actually been thinking of going by Grant. The name Ward . . . has a lot of baggage tied to it. I don't want to be that guy anymore."

She looks at him a long moment, and then she smiles. "I think that sounds like a really good idea."

She stays for nearly a half-hour each time, and the talk between them flows nearly as easily as it did when he was James . . . or when he was Good Ward, her SO. When thoughts like those occur to him, he can't help it, he gets very down on himself, and sometimes even jokes half-seriously about this conversation being better if he were James instead. He sometimes doesn't even notice he's being self-deprecating until Skye sends him concerned looks.

That comes to a head at lunch. Skye gives him his sandwich and informs him she has a question. "We're almost done with the arrangements," she says, and then her expression changes. "You'll be transferred tomorrow."

Tomorrow? That's so soon. He hasn't made his apologies yet to the rest of the team. And he's not ready to say goodbye to Skye. To his immense surprise, she doesn't look entirely pleased either. Is it possible she'll be sorry to see him go? The thought takes some of the sting off the news of his transfer.

"I'm finishing up your papers today," she says, "and I wanted to ask your opinion—what name do you want to use? Your current one is . . . problematic, in some circles."

He knows she's right, but he's not quite ready to give all of it up. "Could I keep Grant, and just change the last name?"

She smiles at that. "Yeah, I think that'd be okay. Any preferences on the new last name?"

He doesn't have to think too hard about that. "How about Shaughnessy?"

"You really like that name, don't you? Or is it just that you like to make it hard for people to spell your name?"

He shrugs. "I liked James. He was a good guy."

Something about that makes her tilt her head and look at him consideringly. "Can we talk?" she says finally. "Like, seriously?"

"Sure," he says, surprised, and she responds by sitting cross-legged right there on the floor. He's startled, but he follows suit, and there they sit, facing each other across the barrier.

"There's something you've been doing that makes me concerned," she says. "Fitz says he noticed it too. You keep talking about James like he's this . . . other guy, someone totally separate from you, who's gone now. But the thing is . . ." She fiddles with the cuffs of her sleeves, looking deep in thought, as though trying to decide how to put this. "The T.A.H.I.T.I. protocol doesn't create personality."

He blinks.

"It creates memories, and those definitely affect how you react to stuff, but it itself doesn't control how you act and feel. So everything that made James good—his kindness, his humor, his instinct to protect people who can't protect themselves—that was you. It wouldn't have been in James if it hadn't been somewhere in Ward . . . at the least the potential for it."

He's actually never thought of it that way before.

"So if you're trying to reinvent yourself," she goes on, "if you don't want to be 'that guy' anymore . . . maybe be like James. You've done it before, you can do it again. Because all that good, it's in here." And she taps her chest, just above her heart. "If being James has taught you anything—if it's taught all of us anything—it should be that Grant Ward has the potential to be great."

No one's ever valued him for his potential to be kind before; no one's ever seen his deep-seated need to protect the vulnerable (the way he couldn't protect Thomas and Rose) and commended him for it. He's always been a tool for others to use, and his value was directly related to his ability to speak six languages and punch people really hard. But Skye thinks he has value beyond that. And his heart in that moment feels like a balloon, only instead of air, it's filled with her.

"I'll remember that," he says. "I'll . . . try." And then, quieter: "Thank you, Skye."

She looks at him, and he sees her hands tighten on her knees, and he lets himself imagine that she's staring at the barrier between them and wishing, just like he is right now, that she could reach out. It's just wishful thinking, surely, but it's a nice thought all the same.

. . . . . .

He's now officially only got one day left at the SHIELD base, so he recruits Skye's help for the last thing he wants to do: apologize, in person, to the people he's hurt. An apology doesn't fix things, but he's got to start somewhere, right?

Skye agrees readily to the plan and goes upstairs to tell everyone that Ward would like to see them, one by one, in person. And he waits and paces in his cell, going over and over the apologies he's been crafting since the day he got his memories back.

The first person to appear is, to his surprise, Melinda May. "I didn't think you'd come," he admits.

"I didn't want to," she says flatly. "But Coulson insisted, so I figured I might as well go now as later."

Not a promising start. But he takes a deep breath, and he apologizes: first for the general things, like betraying the team and causing all those problems with his neo-Hydra group, and second for the specifics. He apologizes for that fight with the table saw, and for giving her a concussion when they came to arrest him in that warehouse. He apologizes for letting her think that their brief liaison was simply a comfortable arrangement for both of them when really it was him manipulating her and making sure she wasn't a threat to his mission. And he apologizes for letting her down as an agent; she'd trusted him, as a fellow specialist, to have her back when it came to keeping Coulson and Fitzsimmons safe on the Bus, but really he'd been working against the team all along.

When he's finished, she looks at him a long time, and then a corner of her mouth turns up in a smirk and she says, "Good."

He is baffled. "Good?"

"Good," she repeats. "I'm not going to say I forgive you, because I don't forgive anyone; I've barely managed to forgive myself for . . . everything. But . . . it's good to hear. Thank you."

He can't help smiling a little. "That's honestly more than I expected from you."

She shrugs. "I've been spending a lot of time with Andrew. He's into all this feelings garbage." She hesitates, then adds, the smirk suddenly gone, "And I know what it's like to have orders." She nods at him, then goes upstairs. And Grant is left pleasantly surprised by how that went down.

Coulson is next, and Grant gives him the same generic apology he gave May, and then apologizes for breaking his trust, for endangering the team he put together, for all the headaches he's caused SHIELD.

Coulson listens to it all with a small smile on his face. "I'm working on moving past it," he says. "Thank you, Ward."

Grant hesitates. "Actually, I've decided to go by Grant. I'm kind of trying to put Ward behind me."

Coulson raises his eyebrows, but simply says, "I understand, Grant."

Bobbi and Lance won't come down, so he records a message for them instead. He tells them he genuinely thought it was the right thing for Kara, although he knows that doesn't excuse anything. He tells them he knows what he did was awful, and of all the things he's done that he's now horrified by, that one's high on the list. He tells them that he knows an apology won't fix it, but that he had to do something, and that if they can't forgive him he'll understand, but that he is more sorry than he can say. Then he sends it up with Skye, who promises she'll try to convince them to watch it.

After a long while, after dinner time has come and gone, Fitz and Simmons come together; he'd figured they would, and he's glad of it, because what he has to say applies to both of them. He notes with pleasure that they're gripping each other's hands, and though he's sorry he makes them nervous, the sight still makes him fight a smile. He used to hope those two would find their way to each other. And it looks like they have.

This is possibly the most difficult apology to make, besides Skye. What he did to May and Coulson was between operatives, between SHIELD and Hydra. But what he did to Fitzsimmons was between friends: a betrayal of the most personal and painful sort. He knows how fond they'd been of him; he knows Fitz, in particular, continued to believe in his innocence long after the rest of the team had faced the truth. So the words he speaks were chosen carefully.

First he gives them the general apology he's been giving everyone, and then he pauses. "Of everything I did," he says after a moment, "I might be most ashamed of what I did to you two. You were my friends. And by that I mean that I know you guys cared about me, but I also mean I cared about you. I know this doesn't fix what happened, but I honestly thought the pod would float, and that we were flying low enough that you wouldn't be too hurt. I knew I had to get you off the plane before Garrett sent someone who would just put a bullet in your heads, so I dropped you, and obviously it backfired. But I should have stood up to Garrett. I should have found another way. When I found out what happened to you, Fitz—" He breaks off, takes a moment to collect himself. "I'll be sorry about that until I die."

They're both staring at him, have been the whole time, and Simmons' mouth is tight and her eyes are skeptical. She finally loosens up enough to say, "You're right, it doesn't fix what happened. But . . ." And her expression softens a little. "It helps, to hear your reasons, from you. I do appreciate that." Another pause. "And I did see you, when you were in the theta brainwave frequency machine. I saw . . . how you reacted to that memory. I do believe you regret it. And it does help to know that."

He gives her a small smile, thanking her for that, and then he turns to Fitz. The engineer has said nothing yet, and his expression is conflicted. "I'm especially sorry to you," Grant says quietly. "I know you wanted to believe the best of me long after everyone else had realized what I really was." He hesitates. "And we were friends once." A smile touches his face. "Remember the world's most dangerous sandwich?"

And finally the tiniest smile crosses Fitz's face. "That was a good day to be a rat."

"There _were_ dogs," Grant reminds him mildly.

"You could have let me take a bite first," Fitz retorts, and it's such a gloriously normal exchange that Grant wants to cheer.

Fitz examines him a moment longer, skeptically. "You _are_ sorry?" he asks, finally.

"More than I can tell you," Grant confirms. "I'd promise to do anything you asked to prove it, but I'm going to prison tomorrow so I don't know how much I could do."

Another pause. "We _were_ friends?"

A sad smile touches Grant's face. "Yeah, we were friends." He thinks a moment, and his smile becomes more genuine. "I kind of thought of you as my kid brother. Kind of a little pest, kind of a know-it-all, but . . ." And the smile falls from his face as he thinks of Thomas, his own kid brother, who at least grew up in the shelter of their mother's favor, but who now probably thinks of Grant as the horrible brother who hurt him as a child—who probably has no idea that Grant only ever wanted to protect him. And he reminds himself, as he has several times lately, to find out what Thomas and Rose are up to now; he kept track of them from a distance after joining SHIELD, but lost track after the Hydra uprising.

Fitz's brain has obviously gone down the same path, because he asks, "And by not shooting us on the plane—you were trying to protect us, they way you couldn't protect your own brother."

Grant's jaw tightens, quite involuntarily, and Fitz looks embarrassed. "Sorry, I'm probably not supposed to know about that."

Grant forces himself to relax. "No, it's fine."

And Fitz looks at him for a long, while both Grant and Simmons wait for his response. Then he says, quite matter-of-factly, "All right, I forgive you."

Both his companions are stunned into silence. "Really?" Simmons demands finally.

Fitz shrugs. "Life's too short. And holding onto that means giving way too much energy to something I want to put behind me. So, yeah, I forgive him."

And Grant finally breaks out of his stupor enough to give Fitz a half smile. "Thank you," he says quietly.

And Fitz smiles back.

Skye comes down after Fitzsimmons leaves. He'd thought she would be the hardest to apologize to; after all, they were . . . something, when he betrayed them. Almost. For about ten minutes.

But it turns out it's the easiest. "I'm sorry," he begins, and she interrupts him with a small smile.

"I know."

. . . . . .

When Grant wakes up on his last morning on the SHIELD base, Coulson is down to his cell so soon after that Grant suspects the director was monitoring the security video feed. He hands Grant a bagel and orange juice, and when he finishes Coulson asks, "Feeling awake and alert?"

A little confused by the question, Grant nods.

"Good," says Coulson. "It's important that you understand what I'm about to say."

Grant raises an eyebrow.

"I've been thinking a lot about incarceration," says the director in that conversational way of his. "What is it meant to accomplish—is it punishment, or just a way to keep someone from committing more crimes? And I've been thinking about mitigating circumstances. You're familiar with the term?"

Grant answers slowly, trying to figure out where this is going. "I believe it refers to circumstances that a court takes into consideration when deciding how much to punish a criminal. In the American legal system, I've most often heard it referred to in terms of deciding if a murderer gets the death penalty or just life in prison."

"Well, luckily for you I'm not the American legal system," says Coulson. "If I were, you'd probably be serving about a dozen life sentences."

That's true, Grant supposes.

"I've been talking a lot to Dr. Garner," Coulson continues. "He thinks you have a very high chance of full rehabilitation. And after observing you for the last few days, I agree."

Grant says nothing but his heart is starting to pound. Is Coulson saying what it sounds like he's saying?

"I don't think anyone's given you a second chance in your whole life. Including me. So I have a proposal: probation, instead. We put you on a tracking anklet—limited range, regular check-ins with SHIELD, that sort of thing. You choose somewhere to settle, get a normal job, rent an apartment. Only caveat: it's got to be somewhere that Dr. Garner can find you a good therapist nearby. And you spend at least the first six months in a halfway house, focusing solely on your recovery." He smiles. "If you're looking for a good place to move to, Dr. Garner has just accepted a job at Columbia. And if you thought you wanted to go back to New York, I just happen to know a businessman named Noel Roher who owns an Italian restaurant there. Maybe he could get you a job."

Grant knows his mouth is hanging open but he doesn't think he could close it to save his life.

"And after you've done that for at least a few years, we decide what to do next—although I should warn you, I imagine the tracking anklet will be around for a while." Coulson pauses. "What do you think?"

What does he think? He thinks it sounds like light when he was expecting darkness, like a hand of friendship when he was expecting to be struck. He thinks it's the best news he's heard in ages. He thinks it's a reason to actually try to turn his life around. But when he tries to speak, all he manages to say is "I think it's a great idea."

Coulson gives him that mild smile. "I thought you might," he says. "Skye's been up since five, redoing your background and your documents for the halfway house; she's just waiting for your choice of city."

Realizing that Coulson is waiting for an answer, Grant casts his mind over the options, only to realize there was never really a question. "New York."

"I thought you might say that." Coulson hesitates. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you, this is your last chance. Don't waste it."

"I won't," Grant reassures him.

"I'll be back in an hour," says Coulson, and leaves. And Grant's legs buckle and he sits down hard on the bed. He's not going away for good. He could have a life. He could have a real life.

Soon after, Fitz appears to fit the tracking anklet onto him. "If you go outside the set boundaries, we'll know," he explains. "If you tamper with it at all, we'll know. Even if you cut your leg off, we'll know."

"I'll remember not to cut my leg off," Grant says, and Fitz looks up at him and smiles quickly.

Some time after that, Mack and Coulson are leading him out of Vault D and through the halls of the base to the garage. People are watching him walk, and he thinks it should be embarrassing to be paraded around as a sort-of prisoner but it's not. He's too dazed and happy to be embarrassed.

And actually the people watching him go don't seem to be judging him at all. He passes May, whose smirk turns a little warmer until you could almost say it resembles a smile. He passes Bobbi, who hesitantly gives him a tiny nod. He passes Fitzsimmons, and Simmons gives him a tiny smile and a nod and Fitz actually steps forward and claps him on the shoulder.

There's one person he hasn't seen yet, and he's really hoping he doesn't miss her—and finally, yes, here she is, in the last bend of the hallway before they reach the garage. "Documents are done and posted," she tells Coulson, stepping out in front of the group so they have to stop walking. "Just thirty seconds ago."

"Thank you," says Coulson. His gaze flits from Skye to Grant and back again, and he seems to sigh a little before patiently looking away—tacit permission for them to take a moment for their goodbyes.

Overwhelmed with gratitude to the director, Grant looks at Skye, wondering what to say. But she, as usual, apparently knows exactly what she wants to do: she steps forward, grabs a handful of his shirt to pull him down to her height, and kisses him.

It is entirely too brief, and when she pulls away she's smiling. "You're disappearing into the wilds of New York and I have strict orders not to show up and distract you for those first six months," she explains, "so I figured, why not?"

He stares at her, and then a smile brighter than any sun starts to spread over his face.

"I'm not promising anything," she's quick to tell him. "Just . . . let's stay in touch. And in six months . . . . who knows?" And she grins.

He grins right back. "One more kiss for the road?"

The last thing he hears as she pulls him back in is Coulson saying admonishingly, "You two are going to make us late," and if anything else is said after that he barely notices because she is kissing him senseless and it's even better than he remembers. He thinks he could happily stand here doing this until he dies—

But now Coulson is clearing his throat and Mack is tapping him on the shoulder until he can't ignore it anymore. "Sorry, bud," Mack says when Grant reluctantly breaks away from Skye to look at him. "But we seriously have to go. The halfway house is expecting us soon."

Sighing, he looks back at Skye, who just smiles at him. "I'll be in touch," she promises, and he, unable to keep the grin from his face, allows himself to be led away, looking back at her until she disappears from view.

At the car, Coulson is puts his hand on his shoulder. "I think you can turn this around, Grant. Prove me right."

Grant nods back. "I'm going to."

. . . . . .

What follows is a strange, bittersweet, happy period of Grant's life.

Wearing the tracking anklet is a pain on occasion, but mostly it doesn't bother him and he doesn't mind not being able to leave his neighborhood, because why would he want to leave? It's got everything there.

The halfway house is a unique experience. It's run by the local Episcopalian church—"I thought James Shaughnessy would like that," Coulson grinned when Grant first saw the place—and he finds he enjoys attending services at the church next door. Sermons on the Ten Commandments, which inevitably include a bit on not killing, can make him a little uncomfortable, but he's pretty sure he's still allowed to try to turn his life around. Actually living at the house is hard to get used to at first—it's been awhile since he's been in such close quarters with so many people—but ultimately it's good to have people around who have also struggled, because they can support each other on their off days. The other residents are mostly all struggling with addictions, so Grant fits right in because his supposed crime, provided by Skye, was possession with the intent to distribute.

He lives at the halfway house for six months, seeing Dr. Garner several times a week. And it helps so much. Some days it's hard to let himself be that open and vulnerable with another person, and some days he hates dredging up old memories, but it helps. For the first time since . . . ever, he feels emotionally healthy, or at least on his way there.

He also gets and writes letters, which is his favorite thing. Skye writes him regularly, as promised; she can't say much about her work and he doesn't have much to say about what he's up to, so she writes silly, rambling, lovely, wise things, about watching rain fall outside her window and pondering on the immensity of the universe and wondering why are Pop Tarts so popular, they're not even _good._ And Fitz writes, though far less often, telling him in very vague terms about his latest work and what everyone on base is up to—also in vague terms, as these letters are all monitored by the house staff. Twice, Simmons even adds notes to these letters, and seeing her prim handwriting always fills him with joy.

After that first six months, he moves out of the halfway house, Dr. Garner cuts their sessions back to twice a week, and Grant hesitantly goes to Ottavio's. Lance Hunter, as Noel Roher, had written to Luisa and Gaohan to expect him, and they are thrilled beyond belief to see him. They think his supposed excursion to Barcelona was just the folly of youth and now he's back in town, broke and wiser. (They also don't question his announcement that he's going by Grant now; he tells them that it's his middle name and he decided to use it to honor his father, who he's named for. It's not true, but it's a good story.)

They are happy to offer him a hosting job; they happen to have an opening. It's less money than he made before he left, but it's enough to rent a studio apartment and get a membership at a boxing gym; he figures something a little more social than weight lifting could be good for him. Then, feeling like it's high time, he starts working toward his GED, with the intention of going on to get a hospitality or business degree (after all, he loved the industry when he was James).

In his first month back at Ottavio's, he slips into much of the old life he was used to as James: work, gym, books. He befriends some of the guys from the boxing gym, and they go to bars and movies; he and Gaohan renew their friendship and Gaohan decides to teach Grant to skateboard. He goes back to volunteering at the shelter. He finally gets himself a dog.

And one quiet evening, when the warm lights from the windows are pouring into the cool dark street, when the marinara smells delicious and Luisa is singing happily to herself in the kitchen, the door opens and into the restaurant walks the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. And she's smiling at him. "Table for one."

A breath he's been holding for seven months comes out all in a whoosh. "I was beginning to doubt I'd ever see you again."

"You could have called," she teases.

"You're not exactly in the phone book," he points out, then adds, "Skye. Or should I still call you Daisy?"

She tilts her head, then admits, "When I imagine you talking to me, I imagine you saying Skye."

He grins. "Skye," he agrees, and wonders why she'd imagine him talking to her. He wishes he still owned this restaurant; if he did, he'd give himself the rest of the night off to spend it all with her. But as it is he can only say, "Your usual table in the back is open, but let me check that no one has any need for it."

He goes back to the kitchen doors, only to be stopped by Gaohan and Luisa coming out of them. "See?" Gaohan is saying to Luisa, gesturing at the hosting station, "it's her. It's definitely her."

"Her?" Grant repeats.

"That girl you were so crazy about last year. That's her, right?"

And Grant, embarrassed, admits, "Yeah, that's her."

"Then what are you doing here talking to us?" Luisa demands.

"Checking if the back table is open," he retorts. "Trying to do my job."

"Well, stop trying to do your job, and go make out with her face," Gaohan commands. "You've been staring at her like she's made of solid gold since she walked through the door."

That effectively derails anything Grant had planned to say.

"I'm serious," says Gaohan. "You've earned a break; I'm giving you the rest of the night off. Go somewhere. Or if she's hungry, bring her back here and you two can eat together."

Luisa nods her agreement. "Tell her the tortellini is excellent tonight."

Grant stares at them both, and then he breaks down in a smile, immensely grateful to have such good friends. He returns to the front. "My manager is allowing me a break," he says. "Could I join you?"

Her smile is answer enough.

They eat tortellini and catch up on the last seven months: he talks about the halfway house and this job and the shelter, and she talks about her work. She went to Paris yet again and yet again neglected to visit the Eiffel Tower; Grant thinks that maybe she just needs someone to go with her to Europe and make sure she remembers to enjoy herself.

When the meal is done, Gaohan gives him a significant look and eyes the front door, and Grant takes the hint and asks Skye if she'd like to take a walk. And walk they do, through lamplit streets and silent avenues, still lightly talking about anything and everything that comes to mind. They always could talk easily. At some point their hands find each others', and in retrospect he thinks she might have initiated it.

In time they make it back around to Ottavio's and come to a halt under the lamp on the opposite corner. He's not ready to go back inside, not until he knows what's going on between them. But before he can figure out how to ask, she speaks first.

"You seem to be doing a good job being Grant," she says. "You know, not Ward, not James, but this new person."

He smiles, pleased and embarrassed. "I like this new person."

"So do I," she says.

He leans down and kisses the top of her head, quite shocked at his own forwardness, and it seems as though that's what finally prompts her to address the question that's been on his mind.

"You know," she says, "I do live in another state."

"I know, he says, a little nervously.

"I can't be here all that often. I mean, I can visit when I have time off, but that really doesn't happen much."

Ah, that sounds like she's letting him down easy. That's . . . heartbreaking. "I see."

She turns and takes his other hand, so now she's right in front of him, looking up with a smile. "So I'm saying I won't be around much. But if you want to try, I'm game."

He's so still he thinks he can hear his own blood pumping. He wants to be sure he's understanding her, so he repeats, "Try?"

"Try this," she says, and reaches up to plant a feather-light kiss on his mouth. "I . . . like you. You know. Romantically."

He finally finds his voice. "For real? Not just 'once for about ten minutes?"

She grins. "No, I haven't been able to get you out of my mind for seven months. I feel like that's probably a good sign." And while he looks for words, she waits, and when none are forthcoming she asks tentatively, "Anything you want to say to that?"

Talking is not exactly on his to-do list right now. Kissing her like their lives depend on it, however, is.

"So yes to the long-distance thing?" she grins when it finally ends, and he kisses her again briefly in response.

"So if you wanted to be dramatic," she says, "you could say, 'I've known you now in three lifetimes—'"

He cuts in, quite seriously. "And I've loved you in each."

She looks at him quietly, then goes up on her toes. In the moment before she kisses him, she whispers, "Likewise."

. . . . . .

Things are not perfect after that; some days they feel impossible. Sometimes it's difficult for her to find time to come to New York, or even to call or e-mail; sometimes they bicker because they're both used to getting their way. Sometimes the smallest thing will trigger a memory of his past, and it will take a long while and lots of focus on the things around him that he loves in order to snap out of it. Sometimes he'll remember one of the awful things he did and shame will overwhelm him.

But most days it's perfect. Most days they call or text or write or, wonder of wonders, she actually has time to come visit. And Gaohan always lets him off early those days. Grant doesn't mind that he doesn't get to see her all the time; he wishes he did get to, but the time he does get is infinitely bigger and better than anything he ever expected to have with her. And the fact that she's sometimes away just makes him cherish the time she's there.

He has wondered a time or two about asking Dr. Garner to find him a doctor closer to the SHIELD base, and moving there to be close to Skye, but he likes Dr. Garner. He likes his apartment and his gym and his little dog Henry. He likes Ottavio's; he likes Luisa and Gaohan. So he's content to stay where he is for the foreseeable future.

For the first time in his life, Grant Douglas Ward, also known as James Grant Shaughnessy, is genuinely happy. And he has no intention of losing that, for as long as he lives.

. . . . . .

fin


End file.
